Development of a comprehensive methodology for the design and fabrication of carbon fiber integrated cement composite toward health monitoring of structural components

[Display omitted] •Carbon fiber (CF) is used to develop self-sensing cement composite (SSC).•The optimized SSC are 0.25% and 0.20% CF without and with silica fume, respectively.•SSC embedded in beams and columns accurately predicted its deformations.•Electrical resistivity of SSC embedded beams has 98% correlation with deflection.•Electrical resistivity in SSC is 95% associated with column displacement. The research aims to develop self-sensing cement composites (SSC) with various micro carbon fiber (CF) concentrations (0.05 %, 0.1 %, 0.15 %, 0.2 %, and 0.25 %) for application in structural health monitoring (SHM). This research evaluates the strength, conductivity, piezoresistivity, and stress-sensitive properties of developed SSC. As an innovative approach, in addition to the development of SSC, they are also embedded in macroscopic structural components to predict their deformation under external loads. The results indicate that the compressive strength is enhanced by 5.2 % due to the ability of CF to bridge cracks. The electrical resistivity of cement composite decreases by 75 % due to the increased contact conduction caused by the formation of continuous conductive CF channels. The performance-index approach optimizes the concentration of CF as 0.25 % with regard to electro-mechanical behavior. The resistivity variation of the optimized SSC embedded in the beam indicates a significant correlation (=98 %) with beam deformation. The embedded SSC identified the deformation of the column under external load with 95% accuracy. Thus, the CF shows the significant capability to develop SSC with good electro-mechanical properties that are capable of detecting the deformations of beams and columns.