Active interface debonding detection of a concrete-filled steel tube with piezoelectric technologies using wavelet packet analysis

Concrete-Filled Steel Tube (CFST) has been widely adopted in high-rise buildings and bridges as a typical structural member carrying vertical loads in recent years. The debonding between the steel tube and the concrete can dramatically reduce the confinement effect of steel tube on the concrete and decrease the load-carrying capacity and the ductility of the CFST. It is still challenging to develop reliable debonding monitoring and detection techniques for CFST because of the inaccessibility of the interface. In this study, an active interface condition monitoring approach for CFST by the use of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) piezoceramics based functional smart aggregates (SAs) embedded in concrete as actuator and PZT patches bonded on the surface of the steel tube as sensors is proposed and verified experimentally. Laboratory tests are performed on the CFST column, in which the deboning is mimicked by setting four thin styrofoam plates with different sizes on different locations of the four internal surfaces of the steel tube, respectively, before casting the concrete. The responses of the PZT sensors are measured when each SA is excited with sweep sinusoidal signals. According to the Fourier spectra and two evaluation indices based on the wavelet packet analysis on the PZT sensors measurements, the artificially mimicked debonding areas are detected successfully. Analysis on the sensitivity of the two evaluation indices shows that the indices based on wavelet packet analysis are more sensitive to the debonding defect. The proposed PZT based active debonding monitoring method provides an innovative approach to detect the debonding damage of CFST columns. ► Active interface debonding detection approach for CFST with PZT is firstly proposed. ► Two interface condition indices based on wavelet packet analysis are proposed and verified with test. ► The sensitivities of the proposed indices is analyzed, tested and compared with Fourier spectra. ► PZT based smart aggregate technique for concrete structure is proposed.