Monitoring of Cable Force Using Wired and Wireless Methods Based on PZT TRANSDUCER: A Feasibility Study

With the continuous growth of traffic load, maintenance has become the main task of various management departments. The cable force loss is directly related to the long-term service performance and life of the bridge. The wireless electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) technique based on PZT transducer attracts more and more attention due to its simple operation, fast detection speed, and wide application range. In this paper, the PZT transducers were coupled to the surface of the nut of the cable to monitor the cable force. Then the influence of the number of EMI sampling points (i.e., 250, 500, 1000) on the RMSD was investigated. The feasibility of the wired and wireless EMI method applied on the cable force monitoring was verified. The results show that the peak of the impedance curve shifted to the right with the increase of the force. The sampling points had little influence on the normalized RMSD. Therefore, the smaller sampling points could be selected to reduce power consumption. The PZT transducer has a strong potential to have a uniform sensitivity coefficient for a member under test.