Experimental Investigation of the Production of Smart Concrete with Piezoelectric Quartz

Abstract

Smart concrete which has been emerged with developing construction technology is a designed smart material for building industry and has appeared owing to the need to monitor the concrete. There are two ways for making smart concrete. By attaching or embedding piezoelectric materials – which have the ability to transform mechanical strain into electrical charge or convert an applied electrical potential into mechanical strain energy when subjected to mechanical stress- in concrete or by adding small amount of microscopic fiber into concrete. The existed studies in the literature are about to expand smart concrete that is a very new material. However, there is no study with regard to the use of piezoelectric natural material in concrete. In this study, the fine aggregate in the mixtures will be partially and totally replaced with piezoelectric quartz crystals, and then the electrical changes on the specimens will be monitored under compression by means of the two copper electrodes. In general, there was a significant increase in compressive strength with increased quartz content. In addition, an increase in the strength resulted in an increase in the voltage values generated. Findings from this study will provide significant contributions to the design engineers and the researchers. 

Keywords: Piezoelectric material, Smart concrete, Quartz.