Thick-Film Ceramic Strain Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring

Structural Health Monitoring represents one of the primary field applications for new sensor technologies. Different kinds of sensors to monitor stability anomalies of civil structures are deployed on different kinds of building materials. Observation of stability must be durable and reliable for the lifetime of a structure. This paper is part of a research to investigate the possibility of application of thick-film (TF) piezoresistive sensors on building materials for the scope of monitoring structure's stability and conditions of load. As a first approach toward this objective, TF piezoresistive sensors will be used like metal-foil strain gauges on two different building materials, namely brick (clay) and concrete. A boosted Wheatstone bridge interface circuitry will be proposed and simulated with a Saber simulator. Thick film ceramic sensors (TFCS) will be applied on red brick and concrete to investigate TF response proportionality and linearity when applied on these two kinds of building materials.