Detecting of the Crack in the Joint of Precast Segmental Bridge

Due to construction errors and disturbances, some crack have been found at the epoxy joints of PCSBs during construction or operation stage. These defects will affect the structural behavior, safety and durability of the bridge. An NDT method using active sensing with piezoceramic based smart aggregate (SA) to detect the crack and in the epoxy joint of PCSBs was proposed in this paper, and the effectiveness and feasibility was verified by experiment in the present work. By comparing the collected voltage signals, PSD energy and WEPI under different healthy states, it is shown that, the test results are closely related to the the length of the crack in the joint. It is demonstrated that the proposed active monitoring method with piezoceramic based SAs provides an effective approach to detect and monitor the crack in the joint of PCSB