Self-sensing cementitious composites with hierarchical carbon fiber-carbon nanotube composite fillers for crack development monitoring of a maglev girder

Abstract

In view of high-performance, multifunctional and low-carbon development of infrastructures, there is a growing demand for smart engineering materials, making infrastructures intelligent. This paper reports a new-generation self-sensing cementitious composite (SSCC) incorporated with a hierarchically structured carbon fiber-carbon nanotube composite filler (CF-CNT), which is in-situ synthesized by directly growing CNT on CF. Various important factors including catalyst, temperature, and gas composition are considered to investigate their kinetic and thermodynamic influence on CF-CNT synthesis. The reciprocal architecture of CF-CNT not only alleviates the CNT aggregation, but also significantly improves the interfacial bonding between CF-CNTs and matrix. Due to the synergic and spatially morphological effects of CF-CNT, i.e., the formation of widely distributed multiscale reinforcement networks, SSCCs with CF-CNTs exhibit high mechanical properties and electrical conductivity as well as excellent self-sensing performances, particularly enhanced sensing repeatability. Moreover, the SSCCs with CF-CNTs are integrated into a full-scale maglev girder to devise a smart system for crack development monitoring. The system demonstrates high sensitivity and fidelity to capture the initiation of cracks/damage, as well as progressive and sudden damage events until complete failure of the maglev girder, indicating its considerable potential for structural health monitoring of infrastructures.