Damage monitoring of the planting balcony in vertical greenery buildings using the EMI method

Vertical greenery buildings generally have high ecological, aesthetics, and economic benefits. This paper focuses on damage monitoring of a reinforced concrete (RC) planting balcony in a high-rise vertical greenery building using the electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) method. Damage evaluation of the concrete using the EMI method was first carried out through theoretical analysis and experimental investigations. They both indicate that the conductance resonant frequency (CRF) of the piezoelectric transducer has a good linear correlation with damage of the concrete. According to the experimental results, damage evaluation criteria of concrete are proposed based on the CRF. On the basis of the above work, damage monitoring of a RC planting balcony employing a total of 13 piezoelectric transducers was conducted for about 7 months. The results show the planting balcony was slightly damaged which mainly happened before planting during the whole monitoring process.