It is important to develop new technologies to monitor the changes in critical infrastructures to ensure adequate maintenance and also safety. Cement is the largest manufactured material on earth and is being used for multiple applications for centuries. Based on the experience and understanding the problems and challenges faced on a daily basis there is a need for integrating fundamental material behavior with real-time monitoring to develop innovative technologies. A new method has been developed characterize materials based on the electrical properties and real-time monitoring the changes in the selected electrical properties in the laboratory and field.

            Chemo-thermo-piezoresistive Smart cement with highly sensing properties has been developed for all types of cements used in both onshore and offshore applications by the infrastructure industries and oil industries. The cement was modified using less than 0.1% conductive fillers with no nano-particles to make the cement to be piezoresistive cement without changing its electrical property to make it conductive. The smart cement is a bulk sensor and there is no buried sensor in the cement. The performance of the smart cement has been tested in the laboratory and is being verified in the field model well. The change in resistivity for the smart cement was over 200% at peak compressive stress (1 day or more curing time) compared to the failure strain of 0.2%, over 1000 times (100,000%) more sensitive. The chemo-thermo-piezoresisitive smart cement is a 3D sensor (3-dimensional) and can detect all types of stresses and also sensitive to the chemicals (contamination), temperature changes, gas leaks, seismic activity and fractures with the integrated real-time monitoring system. Various testing, including rheological, setting and mechanical properties, have been performed on the smart cement and the behavior of smart cement has been modelled using new Vipulanandan models. The smart cement can be used in concrete, grouts and coating to make the entire material as bulk sensors.