ASEA SEC 05


PIEZOELECTRIC PROPERTIES OF CEMENT PIEZOELECTRIC COMPOSITES CONTAINING NANO-QUARTZ POWDERS

HUANG HSING PAN, WEI-REN LIN, KUAN HUANG


Abstract

In order to increase piezoelectric properties of 0-3 type cement piezoelectric composites (piezoelectric cement) developed for structural health monitoring, nano-quartz powders, as the replacement of cement matrix, were added into PZT/cement composites. The piezoelectric cement consists of 50% PZT and 50% cement by volume. Two gradations of PZT inclusions, single-grading and medium-grading, were chosen to fabricate the piezoelectric cement. Nano-quartz powders of 1% to 6% were added to form nano-quartz piezoelectric cement. Experimental results indicate that nano-quartz powders can reduce the porosity of piezoelectric cement. The single-grading piezoelectric cement (PSQ) with 4% nano-quartz powders and the medium-grading one (PMQ) with 2% have the lowest porosity. The maximum values on both piezoelectric strain factor d33 and relative dielectric constant ɛr always occur at the minimum porosity of nano-quartz piezoelectric cement. Both the PSQ and the PMQ have the optimum d33=104 pC/N. For the PSQ, 4% nano-quartz powders provide a 22% enhancement on thickness electromechanical coupling coefficient Kt. However, the effect of nano-quartz powders displays as less effective to the Kt of the PMQ due to non-uniform distribution of PZT particles. Nano-quartz piezoelectric cement has higher piezoelectric properties able to monitor and detect concrete structural health.

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