Wireless Corrosion Monitoring for Reinforced Concrete Structures and Concrete Repair

Substantial efforts are put in preservation projects, but often little care is given once the project is finished. How do we know when we need to go back and repair the building again? A long-term monitoring system can provide invaluable information about the conditions of a building and building materials. Such information may help owners, architects, engineers and conservators to understand what the cause of the problem is, when and where the repair is needed, and what type of intervention is necessary. This can help prevent small problems from becoming large problems. This thesis will evaluate wireless monitoring systems for reinforced concrete structures. Using wireless sensors as monitoring devices is not a new technique. In fact, there are already several wireless sensors being used to monitor various types of structures, materials and conditions. However, most of the existing wireless sensors have short service lives due to limited battery capacity and issues with durability. This thesis research focuses on prototyping and evaluating a wireless and battery-less sensing device named Intelligent Aggregate (IA) and Intelligent Aggregate System (IAS). Intelligent Aggregate is based on the technology of passive RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags, which can wirelessly communicate with RFID readers through Ultra High Frequency (UHF) electromagnetic waves emitted from the readers. There are several advantages of using RFID devices over existing battery powered wireless sensors, which are bulky in size due to batteries and expensive to maintain due to the need to retrieve the sensors for occasional battery change. On the other hand, IA can operate as long as they can harvest energy from the RFID reader. Another advantage of using IA is the ability to easily and inexpensively build Wireless Sensing Networks (WSNs). By strategically deploying hundreds or thousands, if necessary, wireless sensing devices in a building, we can collect extensive information about the condition of buildings and materials in real-time. Such information would greatly help us to wisely use time, money, and other resources.