An automated electrical monitoring system (AEMS) to assess property development in concrete

Electrical impedance measurement techniques are being increasingly used to measure material property development and permeability of concrete and other cement based materials. This paper describes the development of an automated electrical measurement system (AEMS) for measuring the properties of cementitious materials. The components of this system are an electrical impedance spectrometer, a digital multi-meter, a switching unit, and a customized software (AEMS) which communicates between different components of the system to control the testing and to collect data. This system enables electrical properties of multiple specimens to be measured in an automated fashion thereby making this approach very amenable for use in quality control applications. Further, an extension of this system is proposed which would enable its use to detect flaws in concrete using electrical imaging. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.