READABILITY TEST OF RFID TEMPERATURE SENSOR EMBEDDED IN FRESH CONCRETE

The current concrete maturity method implemented with temperature sensors requires an extensive wiring, which is not often acceptable on construction site due to harsh working environment. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology appears to provide a solution for the wiring issue because of its ability of sending data wirelessly. An RFID tag integrated with a temperature sensor and placed within fresh concrete may be able to read temperatures of concrete and transmit them to an RFID reader wirelessly in real-time. However the previous research illustrated that the RFID signal gets dispersed in liquid medium. One may speculate then whether RFID signals travel through fresh concrete with high water content. Would the tag's burying depth within fresh concrete affect its readability? The paper presents the preliminary results of our on-going investigation on the readability of RFID tags in concrete against water content and burying depth of tags.