Electrical and Mechanical Character of Smart Film for Crack Monitoring of Concrete Bridges

In the field of structural health monitoring of concrete bridges, one of the most important problems is the crack identification. In previous studies, sensitive skin for bionic crack monitoring of concrete bridges had been used to monitor the crack initiation and development in a concrete structure, and it was visualized by computer. But there are several problems that prevented this method from being widely applied. In this paper, smart film is proposed for crack monitoring of large scale concrete structures. To monitor the crack of concrete bridge by smart film, the electrical and mechanical characters of smart film were analyzed separately based on a LED (light emitting diode) circuit designed and Fracture Mechanics. The results showed that smart film can monitor cracks of concrete bridges effectively.