A preliminary study of the application of the strain-self-sensing smart geogrid rib in expansive soils.

Flexible conductive materials are widely used in structural health monitoring; it is also known in geotechnical engineering. In this preliminary study, a strain-self-sensing smart geogrid rib was proposed to monitor the induced strain by wetting-drying cycles of the expansive soil. After the calibration, a physical modeling test was conducted with the smart geogrid rib reinforced in expansive soils under three wetting-drying cycles. Results demonstrated: that the smart geogrid rib was capable of self-sensing its strain; the strain self-sensed by the smart geogrid rib was in good agreement with that measured by FBG strain sensors before cracks were generated; it could capture the crack propagation of expansive soils during wetting-drying cycles by the discrepancy compared to FBG sensors. Further study will be continued for the mechanism of the geogrid instead of the geogrid rib and the application to real-time monitoring of the performance of the geosynthetic expansive soil slopes. • A geogrid rib was fabricated with flexible conductive materials to make the strain-self-sensing possible. • A physical modeling test was conducted to demonstrate the application of the smart geogrid rib in the expansive soil. • The geogrid rib could sense the crack propagation of expansive soils, and strains measured agreed with strain sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]