Smart Cement

Book excerpt: Over three billion metric tons of cement are produced annually worldwide, making concrete the most extensively used construction material. Self-sensing, or smart, cement allows real-time monitoring of performance through the entire service life of a concrete structure, for the detection of changing stresses, contamination, excessive temperature, gas leaks and pre-seismic activity. This is achieved by adding a very small proportion of conductive or semi-conductive fibers, such as carbon fibers to the bulk cement, making it piezoresistive, and enabling changes in the concrete’s electrical resistivity in response to shear stress and strain to be monitored. This state-of-the-art reference work presents experimental results with a realistic theoretical framework, for cement manufactures, concrete technologists and contractors as well as researchers.