Bolted joint are among the key components that enable the robust assembly of a wide variety of structures. However, due to wear and tear over time, bolted joint may loosen, and if not detected in its early stages, can lead to devastating results. A monitoring method that can detect bolted joint looseness prior to bolt failure will be essential for the continued operation of the host structure and depending on the situation, the safety of the occupants. Prior research has proven the electromechanical impedance method (EMI) to be an effective technique for detecting the loosening of bolted joints, however, EMI-based methods until now are focused on qualitative health monitoring, which can only provide limited information about the damage. Thus, this paper attempts to quantify EMI based methods through the integration of fractal contact theory, the result of which is a novel electromechanical impedance model for quantitative monitoring of bolted looseness. The method determines the effective impedance of the bolted joint and is applied to develop the relationship between the electrical impedance of a piezoceramic patch installed on the joint and the mechanical impedance of the bolted joint. The mechanical impedance of the bolted joint under various preloads is computed by using the fractal contact theory. Then, the bolted looseness can be monitored quantitatively. At last, a set of verification tests under different applied preload of bolted joint are conducted to verify the validity of the proposed model in this paper.

Monitoring of bolt looseness is essential for ensuring the safety and reliability of equipment and structures with bolted connections. It is well known that tangential damping has an important influence on energy dissipation during wave propagation across the bolted joints, which require different levels of preload. In this paper, the energy dissipation generated by tangential damping of the bolted joints under different bolt preloads was modeled analytically based on fractal contact theory, which took the imperfect interface into account. A saturation value exists with the increase of the bolt preload, and the center frequency of emitted signal is demonstrated to affect the received energy significantly. Compared with previous similar studies based on experimental techniques and numerical method, the investigation presented in this paper explains the phenomenon from the inherent mechanism, and achieves the accurate quantitative monitoring of bolt looseness directly, rather than an indirect failure index. Finally, the validity of the proposed method in this paper was demonstrated with an experimental study of a bolted joint with different preload levels.

Reinforced concrete underground pipelines are some of the most widely used types of structures in water transportation systems. Cracks and leakage are the leading causes of pipeline structural failures which directly results in economic losses and environmental hazards. In this paper, the authors propose a piezoceramic based active sensing approach to detect the cracks and the further leakage of concrete pipelines. Due to the piezoelectric properties, piezoceramic material can be utilized as both the actuator and the sensor in the active sensing approach. The piezoceramic patch, which is sandwiched between protective materials called ‘smart aggregates,’ can be safely embedded into concrete structures. Circumferential and axial cracks were investigated. A wavelet packet-based energy analysis was developed to distinguish the type of crack and determine the further leakage based on different stress wave energy attenuation propagated through the cracks.

Bolted connection is widely used in mechanical and civil engineering; however, in some cases, bolt looseness may cause catastrophic consequences. Bolt pre-load monitoring in real time can help to ensure the safety of component connections and durability of the entire steel structure. Previous research has demonstrated that a ‘smart washer (SW)’ fabricated by embedding a piezoceramic transducer into two flat metal rings could effectively detect the pre-load looseness of a bolted connection. The active sensing method, in which two SWs are necessary, was used in the previous research. In this research, an electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) method enabled by one ‘SW’ was developed to investigate the pre-load condition of a bolted connection. Since the installed SW is directly subjected to the same axial pre-load as that on the bolt, the piezoceramic SW with the EMI technique is uniquely suited for pre-load monitoring of a bolted connection. The pre-load reduction is directly reflected by the EMI of the piezoceramic SW. In particular, a decrease of the pre-load on a bolt connect results in the reduced of its resonant frequency, which can be revealed by the real part of the impedance. In addition, the root mean square deviation (RMSD) of the impedance signals was employed as an index to evaluate the bolt looseness degree. For the experimental study, a bolted connectional specimen with a piezoceramic SW was fabricated and investigated. In the experiment, eleven cases of different pre-loads on the bolt were studied. Experimental results clearly show that with the decrease of the bolt pre-load, the resonant frequency of the bolt joint also decreased, as reflected by the impedance of piezoceramic SW. In addition, experimental results demonstrated that the SW with the EMI based RMSD index can monitor bolt pre-load.

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP), a composite material with high corrosion resistance and high strength-to-weight ratio, has been increasingly used in reinforced concrete structures. The effectiveness of the structures depends on the bonding behavior between FRP composites and concrete structures. Therefore, detection of the debonding between the FRP materials and the hosting concrete structure is of great importance to ensure the structural safety. This paper proposes a stress wave-based active sensing approach to monitor the debonding process of FRP bar with the hosting concrete structure. One shear-type lead zirconate titanate (PZT) patch bonded on the outer surface of the FRP bar was used as an actuator to generate stress wave. Two smart aggregates (SAs), which were fabricated by sandwiching a shear type PZT patch between two protection marble pieces, were embedded in the hosting concrete structure to detect the wave response. The occurrence of debonding between the FRP bar and the hosting concrete structure attenuates the wave propagation. An FRP bar reinforced concrete specimen was designed and fabricated in laboratory. A pullout test was conducted to simulate different degrees of debonding damage. The attenuation of the stress wave due to debonding was clearly observed from the signal received by SAs in both time and frequency domain. Furthermore, a damage index based on wavelet packet analysis was developed to evaluate the debonding status. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method has potentials to detect different degrees of debonding damage of FRP bar reinforced concrete composite structures.

The safety of a bolted connection, as one of the most common ways of making two or more parts/components work together in engineering structures, is very important in order to ensure the health of the whole structure. However, bolt loosening or pre-load degradation may induce the failure of the bolt connection, threatening the normal operation of the system’s structure. As a result, it would be beneficial if the health condition of the bolt connection could be monitored in real time. In this paper, a ‘smart washer’, fabricated by embedding a piezoceramic patch into two pre-machined flat metal rings, was invented and then introduced as a transducer to detect the looseness of a bolted connection. A simple specimen, which consists of two steel plates connected by a nut, a bolt and two smart washers, was fabricated as the test object to study the performance of the ‘smart washers’ (SWs). For the specimen, a smart washer was used as an actuator to generate a stress wave, and the other one was used as a sensor to detect the propagated wave that traveled through the interface of the bolted connection. A time reversal method was employed to quantify the energy of the stress wave propagating between the two washers, and thus it was possible to build a relationship between the extent of any pre-loaded degradation of the bolt connection and the response signal of the stress wave traveling between the two washers. In addition, a normalized bolt looseness index was proposed for evaluating the looseness of a bolt connection based on wavelet energy analysis.