Infrastructural health and operation monitoring are core parts of managing built assets. The project aims to develop robust cement-based sensors with integrated self-sensing and hydrophobicity, and to optimise their robustness and resilience for smart automation in future infrastructure. The new sensors are expected to assess structural health, monitor traffic-flow, decrease the costs of operation and maintenance through enhanced piezoresistivity and serviceability, and gain insights into intrinsic self-sensing and integral water repellency more accurately. The outcomes will improve predictions of performance and service, with major reductions in asset management costs through significantly more-efficient operation and maintenance.
Research areas:
120301 - Cement and concrete materials 60%
240301 - Cement products and concrete materials 40%
School
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Area
Cement and concrete materials | Cement products and concrete materials
- Research environment
- Expected outcomes
- Supervisory team
- Reference material/links
UNSW Centre for Infrastructure Engineering and Safety (CIES) is a first-rate and productive research centre that has developed a world class research reputation, particularly in the areas of cement and concrete materials, and innovative decarbonised infrastructure. It consistently produces cutting-edge and high-impact research outcomes with state-of the-art facilities including a cementitious materials lab, heavy structures research lab, and advanced computational capabilities.
Objective 1: Design and fabricate cement-based sensors with highly intrinsic piezoresistivity: Analyse piezoresistive performance with hybrid functional fillers (Task 1); evaluate piezoresistivity under various loading and environmental conditions (Task 2).
Objective 2: Determine durability and resilience of integral hydrophobic cement-based sensors: Develop integral water repellent capacity for enhanced durability (Task 3); assess the robustness and serviceability under extreme environments (Task 4).
Objective 3: Explore smart automation in field application of future infrastructure: Explore field monitoring and assessing health condition of concrete structures (Task 5); validate real-time traffic-flow detection of concrete pavement and bridge (Task 6).
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- Australian Infrastructure. An Assessment of Australia’s Future Infrastructure Needs, 2019.
- Dong W, Li W, Tao Z, Wang K. Piezoresistive properties of cement-based sensors: Review and perspective. Constr Build Mater, 2019, 203: 146-163.