To develop a novel smart material in civil engineering applications, cement-based 1-3 composites have been fabricated and characterized. The feasibility of the embedded 1-3 composite transducers in structural monitoring applications have been demonstrated in this project. In the present work, piezoelectric ceramic discs and fibres were fabricated and used as the active phases of the 1-3 composites.; Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramic discs were fabricated using a conventional dry pressing method. All the parameters of PZT ceramics have been evaluated by a resonance technique. Crack-free PZT ceramic fibres were fabricated using a simple powder mixing method. The microstructural and electrical characterizations show that performance of the ceramic fibres can be comparable to that of the corresponding bulk ceramics.; To study the piezoceramic/cement 1-3 composites, the properties of cement have been studied as a function of water content. The elastic properties of cement with different water/cement ratios were characterized using the ultrasonic immersion method. It was found that the cement paste with water/cement ratio of 0.5 is relatively "soft" to be used as the passive phase of a 1-3 composite. When comparing with the ceramics, the acoustic impedance of cement is much closer to that of concrete.; Piezoelectric PZT/cement 1-3 composites with a wide range of the ceramic volume fraction (&phis;= 0.25--0.77) have been fabricated successfully using a dice-and-fill technique. Piezoelectric properties of the 1-3 composites were determined by a resonance technique. The characterization showed that the high piezoelectric characteristics of ceramics were maintained and the effective acoustic impedance of composites was reduced as expected. Even the phase matrix is the cement paste, the thickness electromechanical coupling coefficient kt of the 1-3 composites can be enhanced effectively which approaches to the k33 coefficient of the ceramics. The 1-3 composites were found to have reasonable piezoelectric properties that agree quite well with a theoretical modelling. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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