Newly Developed Soft “Sensed Leather” to Monitor Cracks in Building Structures

Civil engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States recently, together with physicists at the University of Potsdam in Germany, have developed an electronic technology for the sustainable monitoring of building structures; the research team said that one would have Electrical properties, such as the soft fabric of the skin, are attached to cracks in the building structure, such as under the bridge, to detect the occurrence of cracks.

This newly developed “sensing skin” is a soft, elastic thermoplastic elastomer that is made of titanium dioxide (titanium dioxide) that is particularly sensitive to cracks. A black carbon paint that senses changes in the charge of the skin forms a patch shape; a patent for this sensing method was filed in March 2010.

The rectangular patches of different shapes made with this sensory skin can adhere to the surface of the structure and detect cracks that are particularly prone to occur in a certain area. For example, using a patch of 3.25 inches square with a sensory skin, it is possible to detect cracks caused by shear forces, that is, different directions of movement of the stacked layers of the structure; distributing the patch horizontally can be achieved. Detect cracks caused by beam depressions.

The behind-the-scenes electronics associated with this sensor patch is a computer system linked to the sensory skin. It sends a current once a day to measure the capacitance of each patch—that is, the sense Measure the energy stored in the skin and detect if there is a difference between adjacent patches; the formation of cracks will cause very little movement of the concrete under the patch and will also cause changes in capacitance.

The computer will continuously detect the formation of cracks 24 hours a day and know the exact location. The researchers pointed out that other sensing devices have been proved to be not easy to achieve such an effect. The largest patch prototype currently published by the research team is 8 inches by 4 inches in area. Participating in this study were Simon Laflamme, a graduate student of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at MIT; Jerome Connor, professor of the department; and Guggi Kofod and Matthias Kollosche, researchers at the University of Potsdam.

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