Quantitative assessment of soil compaction is of great importance to construction work, precision agriculture, and geotechnical research. Currently, measurement of soil compaction is mainly performed through field measurements, and the accuracy is highly influenced by personnel experience. In addition, most of the current methods for soil compaction measurement are not capable of real-time monitoring. This paper presents an exploratory study of using a piezoceramic-based active sensing approach coupled with wavelet packet analysis to quantitatively monitor soil compaction in real time. In the active sensing approach, a pair of smart aggregates (SA) consisting of piezoceramic transducers embedded inside a host material are embedded into soil. In the pair, one SA acts as transmitter to transmit a modulated stress wave towards the other SA, which acts as receiver. The attenuation ratio of the stress wave propagating energy in soil is governed by the degree of soil compactness so that the received wave properties of the smart aggregate sensor can be further characterized by using wavelet packet as an index to evaluate the soil compaction in real time. Integrated with remote sensing technologies, the proposed method has potential to be utilized as a real-time, remote-sensing technology which can offer a solution in the monitoring the degree of soil compaction.

For truss structures, the question of whether to weld hidden welds or not has been controversial. In the actual construction process of truss structures, the members are usually spot welded in place on the assembly platform, and then welded as a whole, while the hidden welds of the truss are not welded, especially for small pipe diameter trusses. Furthermore, in this study, under hidden weld unwelded conditions, two kinds of reinforcing method (adding a half outer sleeve on each joint and filling concrete into the chord members) are adopted to achieve the purpose of strengthening the truss. Therefore, this paper presents an experimental study on the static behavior of four types of Warren tubular trusses made of CHS members. These four types are (1) T-HW: The truss with hidden welds welded; (2) T-HN: The truss with hidden welds unwelded; (3) TS-AS: The truss strengthened on the basis of T-HN by adding a half outer sleeve on each joint; (4) TS-FC: The truss strengthened on the basis of T-HN by filling concrete into the top and bottom chord members. The mechanical behavior, failure mode, bearing capacity, and load-displacement of all specimens were investigated. The surface plasticity of the bottom chord member, the weld fracture around tubular joints at the bottom chord member, and the bending deformation of the bottom chord member were observed in the tests. Compared with the T-HW specimen, the load carrying capacity of the T-HN specimen decreased by 18%. On the other hand, the T-HN specimen has better deformability than the T-HW specimen. The reinforcing method of adding a half outer sleeve on each joint and filling concrete into the chord members can effectively improve the load carrying capacity and stiffness of the truss, thus reducing the overall deformation of the truss, but the reinforcing method of filling concrete into the chord members is more efficient.

The concrete filled pultrusion-GFRP (Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer) tubular column (CFGC) is popular in hydraulic structures or regions with poor environmental conditions due to its excellent corrosion resistance. Considering the influence of concrete hydration heat, shrinkage, and creep, debonding may occur in the interface between the GFRP tube and the concrete, which will greatly reduce the cooperation of the GFRP tube and concrete, and will weaken the mechanical property of CFGC. This paper introduces an active monitoring method based on the piezoelectric transducer. In the active sensing approach, the smart aggregate (SA) embedded in the concrete acted as a driver to transmit a modulated stress wave, and the PZT (Lead Zirconate Titanate) patches attached on the outer surface of CFGC serve as sensors to receive signals and transfer them to the computer for saving. Two groups of experiments were designed with the different debonding areas and thicknesses. The artificial damage of CFGC was identified and located by comparing the value of the delay under pulse excitation and the difference of wavelet-based energy under sweep excitation, and the damage indexes were defined based on the wavelet packet energy to quantify the level of the interface damage. The results showed that the debonding damage area of CFGC can be identified effectively through the active monitoring method, and the damage index can accurately reflect the damage level of the interface of GFRP tube and concrete. Therefore, this method can be used to identify and evaluate the interface debonding of CFGC in real time. In addition, if the method can be combined with remote sensing technology, it can be used as a real-time remote sensing monitoring technology to provide a solution for interface health monitoring of CFGC.