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Page count: 9

Self-sensing material is one of the most important components of smart construction. As a promising stress self-sensing material, carbon nanotube (CNT)/cement composite has been widely studied in the past decade. The stress self-sensing performance, which is reflected by the piezoresistivity of the CNT/cement composite, can be determined by several factors, such as CNT dispersion, water/binder ratio, or loading directions. Although these factors have been systematically investigated to demonstrate their effects on the self-sensing performance of CNT/cement composite, the variation of the percolation networks of CNT in the cement matrix, which is another important factor that determines the piezoresistivity of the CNT/cement composite, was barely discussed before. In this study, the variation of the CNT percolation network in cement matrix under compression loading was calculated based on the percolation theory; and the piezoresistivity of the CNT/cement composite below and above the percolation threshold was analyzed from the perspective of the effective percolation networks of CNT in the CNT/cement composite. Furthermore, the mechanism of the piezoresistivity variation was elucidated via calculating the percolation backbone density. This study not only gives a basic introduction to calculate the effective percolation networks of CNT in the cement matrix, but also shed light on how to obtain a CNT/cement composite with a stable stress self-sensing performance.