TY - CHAP A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Wang, Xin A1 - Epple, Niklas A1 - Schumacher, T. A1 - Ahmend, S. A1 - Klikowicz, P. ED - Yokota, H. ED - Frangopol, D. W. T1 - Ultrasonic coda wave monitoring of concrete structures: First experiences with large-scale experiments and real structures T2 - Bridge Maintenance, Safety, Management, Life-Cycle Sustainability and Innovations N2 - Ultrasonic monitoring, making use of the sensitivity of the coda of repeated transmission meas-urements to changes in stress, temperature, moisture, as well as localized or distributed damage, has gotten at-tention in structural health monitoring (SHM) research recently. Analysis methods such as coda wave inter-ferometry (CWI), including its nonlinear extension, have been shown to be able to measure ultrasonic wave velocity changes with a 1∙10-5 resolution, while indicators such as cross-correlation or cross-coherence have been used to distinguish between reversible and irreversible changes. Several small- and large-scale laboratory experiments have demonstrated that stress changes in structures can be captured or damage detected in a very early stage. The use of this technique for pre-warning before failure are currently under investigation, as well as detailed research on the physical causes and the connection between ultrasonic wave properties and materi-al/structural behavior. Recently, several of large-scale laboratory and real structures have been instrumented with embedded ultrasonic transducers to gather experience and evidence on how to use this technology in re-al-world applications. Preliminary results from installations on a new bridge, an existing bridge, a tunnel, a la-boratory earthquake test as well as a historic stadium in Germany, Poland, and the United States, respectively, are presented. Environmental influences (mainly temperature) and validation by load tests are discussed. KW - Coda wave interferometry KW - Structural health monitoring KW - Ultrasound KW - Concrete KW - Bridges PY - 2021 SN - 978-0-367-23278-8 DO - https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429279119-345 SP - 2525 EP - 2531 PB - Taylor & Francis CY - London, UK AN - OPUS4-54168 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Sodeikat, C. A1 - Epple, Niklas A1 - Liao, Chun-Man A1 - Hindersmann, I. T1 - Acoustic emission and ultrasonic monitoring of a prestressed concrete bridge in its final years N2 - Many European bridges built in the 1950s, 60s and 70s must be re-placed in the next decade due to structural deficiencies, insufficient load capacity or other issues. However, the existing bridges must be used for another couple of years even if flaws and damages already have been detected. In Germany, several prestressed concrete bridges have been instrumented with acoustic emission detection systems to detect wire breaks and to provide early warning signs before failure. To evaluate and interpret the consequences of wire breaks additional instrumentation and accompanying measures as finite element modeling are required. At a bridge in southern Germany we have complemented such a system with active ultrasonic monitoring. Repeated ultrasonic measurements are evaluated with a very sensible algorithm called coda wave interferometry. This method, inspired by seismology, has been shown to deliver early warning signs in lab experiments. Large volumes of concrete can be monitored with a limited network of ultrasonic transducers. We will report on the installation, capabilities, and lim-itations as well as first results. T2 - 1st Conference of the European Association on Quality Control of Bridges and Structures (Eurostruct) CY - Padua, Italy DA - 29.08.2021 KW - Bridge KW - Concrete KW - Acoustic emission KW - Ultrasound KW - Monitoring PY - 2021 AN - OPUS4-54160 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wang, Xin A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Hindersmann, Iris T1 - The installation of embedded ultrasonic transducers inside a bridge to monitor temperature and load influence using coda wave interferometry technique JF - Structural Health Monitoring N2 - This article presents a unique method of installing a special type of embedded ultrasonic transducers inside a 36-m-long section of an old bridge in Germany. A small-scale load test was carried out by a 16 ton truck to study the temperature and load influence on the bridge, as well as the performance of the embedded transducers. Ultrasonic coda wave interferometry technique, which has high sensitivity in detecting subtle changes in a heterogeneous medium, was used for the data evaluation and interpretation. The separation of two main influence factors (load effect and temperature variation) is studied, and future applications of wave velocity variation rate Φ for structural health condition estimation are discussed. As a preliminary research stage, the installation method and the performance of the ultrasonic transducer are recognized. Load- and temperature-induced weak wave velocity variations are successfully detected with a high resolution of 10−4%. The feasibility of the whole system for long-term structural health monitoring is considered, and further research is planned. KW - Ultrasound KW - Bridge KW - Monitoring KW - coda wave interferometry KW - embedded PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-527978 DO - https://doi.org/10.1177/14759217211014430 SN - 1475-9217 VL - 21 IS - 3 SP - 913 EP - 927 PB - SAGE AN - OPUS4-52797 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Epple, Niklas A1 - Fontoura Barroso, Daniel A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst ED - Rizzo, P. ED - Milazzo, A. T1 - Towards Monitoring of Concrete Structures with Embedded Ultrasound Sensors and Coda Waves – First Results of DFG for CoDA T2 - Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering. European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring. Special Collection of 2020 Papers - Volume 1 N2 - Due to the importance of reinforced concrete structures for modern society, damage assessment during the entire life-cycle of such structures has become a special interest in non-destructive testing. Using embedded ultrasound sensors in combination with other measurement methods, numerical modeling and self-made data collectors, tailored specifically for monitoring tasks, the German research group DFG FOR CoDA aims to investigate and develop novel methods for damage detection and rapid model updating in reinforced concrete structures. In the first stage of the project, besides the development of custom-built, low-cost data collectors, ultrasonic transducers are embedded in a large, reinforced concrete specimen on a BAM test site near Berlin. In this experiment, the influence of changing environmental conditions (mainly temperature) on the ultrasound signal is investigated using coda-wave interferometry. The results show a correlation between changes in temperature and ultrasonic velocity. Such changes must be taken into consideration in a long-term monitoring setup to distinguish between reversible and permanent changes. By correcting the data using a linear relation between concrete temperature and velocity change to remove the seasonal trends and by low-pass filtering the data to remove daily variations can remove most of the temperature influence on the ultrasound measurements. KW - Ultrasound KW - Coda Wave Interferometry (CWI) KW - Embedded sensors KW - Structural health monitoring PY - 2021 SN - 978-3-030-64593-9 SN - 978-3-030-64594-6 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64594-6_27 VL - 127 SP - 266 EP - 275 PB - Springer Nature CY - Cham, Switzerland AN - OPUS4-52012 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Epple, Niklas A1 - Fontoura Barroso, Daniel A1 - Hau, Julia A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst ED - Cunha, A. ED - Caetano, E. T1 - Accounting for Long Term Environmental Influences on Ultrasonic Monitoring Measurements of Reinforced Concrete Constructions with Embedded Transducers T2 - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure, SHMII 10 N2 - Ultrasound measurements in concrete are a well-known technique in civil engineering and non-destructive testing. For consistent monitoring of a concrete structure, the common techniques, using external sensors can often not provide the appropriate degree of repeatability, as the surface of structures changes, and comparable coupling conditions cannot be guaranteed when a measurement is repeated after some time. By embedding ultrasound transducers in concrete, we aim to develop a strategy for long-term monitoring of infrastructure, especially bridges, as a supplement and extension to other techniques. Applying the so-called coda wave interferometry to these measurements we can detect subtle changes in the medium far beyond the Resolution limit of traditional time of flight methods. A smart sensor layout enables cost-efficient sensing of the entire area of interest. Embedding the transducers might remove uncertainties like coupling or positioning changes, while other challenges remain. Temperature and moisture content influence the structure and the transducers. These drifts need to be recorded and removed and good coupling must be ensured while not being able to visually inspect the sensor. In a multidisciplinary research group funded by the German Research Foundation, we aim to solve these problems on the way towards an ultrasound monitoring system for reinforced concrete structures. In various experiments in the lab and field, we determine the influence of temperature variations on the measurements and the equipment. As the monitoring task is the detection of irreversible damages - not reversible changes - a smart system requires a smart way of discrimination between permanent damages and reversible changes. With the data collected in these experiments, we present an approach to an environmental correction to ultrasound data to avoid a misinterpretation of these environmental changes as damage indicators. T2 - 10th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure CY - Porto, Portugal DA - 30.06.2021 KW - Ultrasound KW - Coda Wave Interferometry (CWI) KW - Structural Health Monitoring KW - Embedded Sensors PY - 2021 SP - 1 EP - 7 AN - OPUS4-54007 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Gardner, S. A1 - Kind, Thomas A1 - Kaiser, R. A1 - Grunwald, Marcel A1 - Yang, G. A1 - Redmer, Bernhard A1 - Waske, Anja A1 - Mielentz, Frank A1 - Effner, Ute A1 - Köpp, Christian A1 - Clarkson, A. A1 - Thompson, F. A1 - Ryan, M. A1 - Mahon, D. T1 - Muon Tomography of the Interior of a Reinforced Concrete Block: First Experimental Proof of Concept JF - Journal of Nondestructive Evaluation N2 - Quality assurance and condition assessment of concrete structures is an important topic world-wide due to the aging infrastructure and increasing traffic demands. Common topics include, but are not limited to, localisation of rebar or tendon ducts, geometrical irregularities, cracks, voids, honeycombing or other flaws. Non-destructive techniques such as ultrasound or radar have found regular, successful practical application but sometimes suffer from limited resolution and accuracy, imaging artefacts or restrictions in detecting certain features. Until the 1980s X-ray transmission was used in case of special demands and showed a much better resolution than other NDT techniques. However, due to safety concerns and cost issues, this method is almost never used anymore. Muon tomography has received much attention recently. Novel detectors for cosmic muons and tomographic imaging algorithms have opened up new fields of application, such as the investigation of freight containers. Muon imaging also has the potential to fill some of the gaps currently existing in concrete NDT. As a first step towards practical use and as a proof of concept we used an existing system to image the interior of a reference reinforced 600 kg concrete block. Even with a yet not optimized setup for this kind of investigation, the muon imaging results are at least of similar quality compared to ultrasonic and radar imaging, potentially even better. The data acquisition takes more time and signals contain more noise, but the images allowed to detect the same important features that are visible in conventional high energy X-ray tomography. In our experiment, we have shown that muon imaging has potential for concrete inspection. The next steps include the development of mobile detectors and optimising acquisition and imaging parameters. KW - Concrete KW - Muon KW - Radar KW - Ultrasound KW - X-ray PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-529974 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-021-00797-3 VL - 40 IS - 3 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Springer Nature AN - OPUS4-52997 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Wang, Xin A1 - Epple, Niklas A1 - Schumacher, T. A1 - Ahmend, S. A1 - Klikowicz, P. T1 - Ultrasonic coda wave monitoring of concrete structures: First experiences with large-scale experiments and real structures N2 - Ultrasonic monitoring, making use of the sensitivity of the coda of repeated transmission meas-urements to changes in stress, temperature, moisture, as well as localized or distributed damage, has gotten at-tention in structural health monitoring (SHM) research recently. Analysis methods such as coda wave inter-ferometry (CWI), including its nonlinear extension, have been shown to be able to measure ultrasonic wave velocity changes with a 1∙10-5 resolution, while indicators such as cross-correlation or cross-coherence have been used to distinguish between reversible and irreversible changes. Several small- and large-scale laboratory experiments have demonstrated that stress changes in structures can be captured or damage detected in a very early stage. The use of this technique for pre-warning before failure are currently under investigation, as well as detailed research on the physical causes and the connection between ultrasonic wave properties and materi-al/structural behavior. Recently, several of large-scale laboratory and real structures have been instrumented with embedded ultrasonic transducers to gather experience and evidence on how to use this technology in re-al-world applications. Preliminary results from installations on a new bridge, an existing bridge, a tunnel, a la-boratory earthquake test as well as a historic stadium in Germany, Poland, and the United States, respectively, are presented. Environmental influences (mainly temperature) and validation by load tests are discussed. T2 - IABMAS 2020 CY - Online meeting DA - 11.04.2021 KW - Ultrasound KW - Monitoring KW - Coda wave interferometry KW - Concrete KW - Bridges PY - 2021 AN - OPUS4-54167 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Current Trends in SHM of German Prestressed Concrete Road bridges N2 - Due to increasing ageing, deterioration and loading , several prestressed concrete bridges bulit in the 1950ies and 1960ies need monitoring. Recently several bridges have sucesssfully equipped with acoustic emission sensing system. BAM works together with several universities on an add onn: Active ultrasonic monitoring combined with coda wave interferometry will help to detect subtle changes and precursors fo failure earlier than other methods. T2 - TRB 100th Annual Meeting, Subcommittee AKT40(3) CY - Online meeting DA - 05.01.2021 KW - Bridges KW - Monitoring KW - Acoustic emission KW - Ultrasound KW - Coda wave interferometry PY - 2021 AN - OPUS4-51972 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wang, Xin A1 - Chakraborty, J. A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Noise Reduction for Improvement of Ultrasonic Monitoring Using Coda Wave Interferometry on a Real Bridge JF - Journal of Nondestructive Evaluation N2 - Reinforced concrete bridges are iconic parts of modern infrastructure. They are designed for a minimum service life of 100 years. However, environmental factors and/or inappropriate use might cause overload and accelerate the deterioration of bridges. In extreme cases, bridges could collapse when necessary maintenance lacks. Thus, the permanent monitoring for structure health assessment has been proposed, which is the aim of structural health monitoring (SHM). Studies in laboratories have shown that ultrasonic (US) coda wave interferometry (CWI) using diffuse waves has high sensitivity and reliability to detect subtle changes in concrete structures. The creation of micro-cracks might be recognized at an early stage. Moreover, large-volume structures can be monitored with a relatively small number of US transducers. However, it is still a challenge to implement the CWI method in real SHM practical applications in an outdoor environment because of the complex external factors, such as various noise sources that interfere with the recorded signals. In this paper, monitoring data from a 36-m long bridge girder in Gliwice, Poland, instrumented with embedded US transducers, thermistors, and vibrating wire strain gauges, is presented. Noise estimation and reductionmethods are discussed, and the influence of traffic, as well as temperature variation, are studied. As a result, the relative velocity variation of US waves following the temperature change with a very high precision of 10−4% is shown, and a good bridge health condition is inferred. The influence of lightweight real traffic is negligible. The study verified the feasibility of the implementation of the CWI method on real bridge structures. KW - Ultrasound KW - Coda Wave Interferometry KW - Noise KW - Concrete KW - Bridge PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-020-00743-9 VL - 40 IS - 1 SP - Article number: 14 PB - Springer Nature AN - OPUS4-52052 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Landis, E. A1 - Hassfras, Emiel A1 - Oesch, Tyler A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Relating ultrasonic signals to concrete microstructure using X-ray computed tomography JF - Construction and Building Materials N2 - With a goal to improve our understanding of the relationships between microstructural features and ultrasonic signal behavior, concrete specimens of varying water-to-cement ratio were imaged using X-ray computed tomography (CT), and subsequently subjected to ultrasonic testing. From the CT scans, measurements were made of cement paste density and number of interfaces. Ultrasonic signals produced using a through-transmission configuration were analyzed and fit to a diffusion model to separate absorption from scattering attenuation. The results showed that at the frequencies tested, ultrasonic dissipation rate correlated weakly with paste density, while diffusivity correlated well with number of interfaces, but only if entrained air is considered separately. Cement paste density was found to be very well predicted by diffusivity, leading to a clear power-law relationship between diffusivity and compressive strength. KW - Concrete KW - Ultrasound KW - Strength KW - CT PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.121124 SN - 0950-0618 VL - 268 SP - Paper 121124, 1 EP - 12 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-52073 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -