Monitoring Strength Growth of Concrete Composites with Graphene Oxide Nanomaterials Using Embedded Piezo Sensors

Currently, there is a development in integrating the nanomaterials with concrete to enhance its performance at a nano scale level. Graphene oxide (GO) is one of such nanomaterial that when added improves the mechanical properties of a concrete as its aromatic structure contains various oxygen functional groups providing a better dispersion. In this study, the effect of GO as a nano additive has been investigated on strength growth of concrete composites using an electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) technique. Embedded piezoelectric sensors (EPS) has been used in this experiment to monitor and collect the EMI signatures of a GO concrete composites (GOCC) specimen during the 28 days of curing. The destructive testing was conducted to obtain its compressive strength. To quantify the changes during the strength growth, the statistical indices were used and an equivalent stiffness is extracted from the raw signatures of EMI to monitor the gain in stiffness parameter. Incorporating GO only 0.03% weight of cement into concrete shows the compressive strength increase of 31% at 7 days and 25% at 28 days compared with the conventional concrete (CC). The EPS effectively captured the variation in conductance signatures during the strength growth and the growing trend of equivalent stiffness values followed a similar trend of the growth of compressive strength. Hence, the proposed method can be effectively used for monitoring and assessing the strength growth development of concrete composite at nano level.