Smart Behavior of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Cement-based Composite

The electrical characteristics of cement-based material can be remarkably improved by the addition of short carbon fibers.Carbon fiber reinforced cement composite (CFRC) is an intrinsically smart material that can sense not only the stress andstrain, but also the temperature. In this paper, variations of electrical resistivity with external applied load, and relationof thermoelectric force and temperature were investigated. Test results indicated that the electrical signal is related to theincrease in the material volume resistivity during crack generation or propagation and the decrease in the resistivity duringcrack closure. Moreover, it was found that the fiber addition increased the linearity and reversibility of the Seebeck effect inthe cement-based materials. The change of electrical characteristics reflects large amount of information of inner damage andtemperature differential of composite, which can be used for stress-strain or thermal self-monitoring by embedding it in theconcrete structures.