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The vulnerability of low-quality concrete of some bridges to ageing and deterioration while they are exposed to environmental conditions during their service life, influence of growing population and climate changes, is a well-known effect and requires survey. For survey, the development of a low cost, cost-efficient sensor network to be embedded for continuous or attached to the surface for periodic monitoring is essential.
Changing ground water conditions, flood or even leakage in fresh or disposal of waste water can lead to in-creased moisture content in building materials and structural elements as walls or floors. Moisture allows the transport of other adverse chemicals that might reduce the durability of structures. The paper presents a feasibility study about the capability of microwave modules as bluetooth® or ZigBee with frequency range at 2,4 GHz to create advanced Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) for estimation and visualization of moisture distribution in infrastructure assets. It was found that the value of the received signal strength indication (RSSI) depends on the moisture content and can be the basis for the moisture distribution inside a massive structure.
The microwave modules may be used to compose networks outside and inside of building materials or structural elements. The higher the number of connections between BLE modules, the more precise and the more distant information can be obtained from the network. Mesh networking was applied to increase the quantitative information.
The vulnerability of low quality concrete to changing weather conditions is well known. The constant exposure to temperature changes, biological activity, and humidity ends up in damage to buildings and structures which contain this material. It is therefore necessary to take preventive measures to control the extent of the damage done by weathering and possible penetration of adverse chemicals into structures which need public safety.
The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), in cooperation with the small enterprise LinTech GmbH, is working on a project to monitor humidity changes in concrete by analyzing the changes in signal strength (RSSI) from Bluetooth Low Energy sensors. In this paper, we show results which demonstrate the influence of changing water content in concrete on the received RSSI. We observed that as water content in concrete decreases, the received RSSI improves. However, the damping effect is not linearly proportional to water content, rather exponentially proportional. This suggests that changes in the received signal strength are more easily observed when water content in concrete is higher. Finally, we reconstructed a RSSI distribution map using computed tomography.
Knowing the state of the setting process of concrete in buildings or the moisture level of old
walls can be crucial in determining further steps in the construction or restoration process. Small
2.4 GHz modules can be either embedded or applied on the surface to determine the moisture
distribution in material. Common modules, that are based on the highly available Bluetooth
Low Energy standard, emit electromagnetic waves, whose signal strength gets dampened by
water molecules. This effect serves as the basis on determining the moisture level in material.
We will show how to apply this method in a meshed sensor network for online monitoring.