Smart Concrete in Bridge Health Monitoring

Smart cities are facing with many different scientific fields that intend to provide intelligence. The aim of all contributed factors is improving operational efficiency and enhancing quality of life. Smart Structures form the foundation of smart cities. By collecting continuous data from smart structures and evaluating them, the goal of greater efficiency is addressed. The performance of smart structures is due to the characteristics of the used intelligent materials in them. In this paper special kind of smart materials called as self-sensing concrete is discussed. Smart systems freed from external sensors by using this material, which describes itself continual. Concrete containing short carbon fibers (0.2-0.5 vol.%) became electrically conductive and was found to be an intrinsically smart concrete. This capability is based on the notion that the volume electrical resistivity of electrically conducting concrete increases upon flaw generation or propagation. This property is very useful for monitoring bridges, which are an important kind of infrastructures. Therefor signs of failure detected so earlier than obvious evidence, repair and maintenance proceedings accomplished promptly and horrible events, which causes heavy financial losses are prevented.