The Ascertainment of the Presence of Damage Processes Using the Pressure Stimulated Current (PSC) Technique on Marble and Cement Samples

Current emissions due to externally applied stress were studied for various materials in the past. This work concentrates on comparative measurements conducted on marble and cement mortar samples. The current emitted and its correlation to the damage development in the samples bulk was studied. Specifically, several experiments were conducted by applying constant stress rate or deformation rate on marble and cement samples and the emitted Pressure Stimulated Current (PSC) was recorded. The diagrams that correlate the emitted PSC and the stress, for both cement and marble samples show up three regions in which the PSC increases with the stress. On the basis of the above, using the form of the curves one may quantify the damages that have occurred within the bulk of the sample. The results proved that the form of the emitted current had the same characteristics for both materials showing this way that the underlying physical mechanism is the same.