TY - JOUR A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Wolf, Julia A1 - Mielentz, Frank A1 - Wiggenhauser, Herbert A1 - Pirskawetz, Stephan T1 - Embedded ultrasonic transducers for active and passive concrete monitoring JF - Sensors N2 - Recently developed new transducers for ultrasonic transmission, which can be embedded right into concrete, are now used for non-destructive permanent monitoring of concrete. They can be installed during construction or thereafter. Large volumes of concrete can be monitored for changes of material properties by a limited number of transducers. The transducer design, the main properties as well as installation procedures are presented. It is shown that compressional waves with a central frequency of 62 kHz are mainly generated around the transducer's axis. The transducer can be used as a transmitter or receiver. Application examples demonstrate that the transducers can be used to monitor concrete conditions parameters (stress, temperature, …) as well as damages in an early state or the detection of acoustic events (e.g., crack opening). Besides application in civil engineering our setups can also be used for model studies in geosciences. KW - Ultrasound KW - Transmission KW - Concrete KW - Damages KW - Cracks KW - Stress KW - Monitoring KW - Acoustic emission KW - Transducers KW - Coda wave interferometry PY - 2015 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-345632 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/s150509756 SN - 1424-8220 VL - 15 IS - 5 SP - 9756 EP - 9772 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-34563 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Wiggenhauser, Herbert T1 - Coda wave interferometry used for monitoring of concrete constructions N2 - Ultrasonic transmission measurements on concrete; embedded transducers; coda wave interferometry to check for subtle chnages in velocity as indicator for various loads or deterioration. T2 - 76. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Geophysikalischen Gesellschaft CY - Münster, Germany DA - 14.03.2016 KW - Ultrasound KW - Transmission KW - Coda wave interferometry KW - Concrete KW - Load PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-37721 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Wiggenhauser, Herbert T1 - Coda wave interferometry used for monitoring of concrete constructions N2 - Concrete is known to be a very useful, flexible and durable construction material. However, due to excess load, fatigue, chemical processes, freeze-thaw or reinforcement corrosion concrete may suffer from degradation. If detected too late, repair is difficult and expensive. The propagation of ultrasonic waves is influenced by changes in the properties and structure of the material, including, but not limited to, stress, temperature, moisture content and microcracking. Ultrasonic velocieties thus may serve as indicators for structural health. Traditional ultrasonic methods as transmission time of flight measurements are used since decades, but are not sensible enough to show subtle changes. Coda Wave Interferometry (CWI), originally developed in seismology to detect stress changes in the earth's crust uses the information in the late part of ultrasonic signals originating from multiple reflections and scattering. Since a few years it is used by several researchers for lab experiments on concrete. Meanwhile specialized sensors to be embedded in concrete have been developed. We have conducted several lab and a few field experiments, which will be reported here. The capabilities and limitations of CWI are summarized. T2 - Jahrestagung der DGG CY - Münster DA - 14.03.2016 KW - Coda wave interferometry KW - Concrete KW - Monitoring KW - Ultrasound PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-35710 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Detecting subtle changes in concrete with coda wave interferometry N2 - Subtle changes in concrete, caused by stress, temperature or deterioration can be detected by ultrasonic transmission measurements evaluated by coda wave interferometry. Background and examples are presented as well as possibilities to locate damages. T2 - New mathematics for a safer world: wave propagation in heterogeneous materials CY - Edinburgh, UK DA - 12.06.2017 KW - Concrete KW - Ultrasound KW - Coda wave interferometry KW - Monitoring PY - 2017 AN - OPUS4-40580 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Bertschat, Anja A1 - Mierschke, Vivien A1 - Wang, Xin T1 - Bridge monitoring using embedded ultrasonics First results from the BLEIB reference structure N2 - The BLEIB reference structure The structure is a two-span, 24 m long inverse u-shaped post-tensioned concrete beam. Fibre optic sensing cables, RFID sensors and ultrasonic transducers are permanently embedded. Other sensing techniques (vibrational, optical, ultrasonic, mechanical) are applied externally. Tension can be adjusted. Loads can be placed at arbitrary locations. Limited damage is introduced to one span. The BLEIB reference structure is located at BAM‘s test site in Horstwalde, south of Berlin. Ultrasonic transducer before concreting. Embedded ultrasonic transducers 14 piezo transducers have been embedded before concreting. They are located in five sections, two close to the centers of both spans respectively and one above the central bearing. Load experiment and data evaluation In a first experiment load 2 (weight 2 t) was moved three times along the southern (right) span. The tension forces were modified as well. Ultrasonic transmission measurements were repeated over time and evaluated using Coda Wave Interferomerry (CWI), which determines correlation coefficients and relative velocity changes as subtle indicators for loads and other changes in the material. T2 - New mathematics for a safer world: wave propagation in heterogeneous materials CY - Edinburgh, UK DA - 12.06.2017 KW - Bridge monitoring KW - Ultrasound KW - Embedded transducers KW - Coda wave interferometry PY - 2017 AN - OPUS4-40578 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Wang, Xin A1 - Herbrand, M. A1 - Müller, M. T1 - Processing ultrasonic data by coda wave interferometry to monitor load tests of concrete beams JF - Sensors N2 - Ultrasonic transmission measurements have been used for decades to monitor concrete elements, mostly on a laboratory scale. Recently, coda wave interferometry (CWI), a technique adapted from seismology, was introduced to civil engineering experiments. It can be used to reveal subtle changes in concrete laboratory samples and even large structural elements without having a transducer directly at the place where the change is taking place. Here, several load tests until failure on large posttensioned concrete beams have been monitored using networks of embedded transducers. To detect subtle effects at the beginning of the experiments and cope with severe changes due to cracking close to failure, the coda wave interferometry procedures had to be modified to an adapted step-wise approach. Using this methodology, we were able to monitor stress distribution and localize large cracks by a relatively simple technique. Implementation of this approach on selected real structures might help to make decisions in infrastructure asset management. KW - Ultrasound KW - Concrete KW - Monitoring KW - Coda wave interferometry KW - Embedded transducers PY - 2018 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-452328 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/s19010147 SN - 1424-8220 VL - 19 IS - 1 SP - Article 147, 1 EP - 13 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-45232 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Ultrasonic monitoring of full-scale load experiments N2 - Previous work has shown that ultrasonic monitoring using externally applied or embedded transducers and imaging methods based on coda wave interferometry are able to detect subtle changes in concrete elements. In this study, a limited number of embedded transducers has been used to monitor changes in several 12 m long two-span concrete beams subjected to point or linear loads until failure. The ultrasonic results showed the high sensitivity to stress changes and the nonlinear character of the associated effects. However, the ultrasonic features showed a very good correlation to several conventional monitoring parameters. For higher loads (significant amount of cracking), the technique had to be modified to cope with large wave velocity variations and high decorrelation compared to the reference signal. Using a very simple imaging procedure, the 2D stress field inside the beam has been visualized including inhomogeneities and artifact at places where cracking occurred at higher loads. The technique has the potential to be included in real time monitoring systems. T2 - ASNT SMT/NDT-CE 2018 CY - New Brunswick, NJ, USA DA - 27.8.2018 KW - Concrete KW - Monitoring KW - Ultrasound KW - Coda wave interferometry PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-45827 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Abraham, O. A1 - Larose, E. T1 - A review on ultrasonic monitoring of concrete: coda wave interferometry and beyond N2 - The propagation of ultrasonic waves in concrete is affected by its micro- and macro-structure, geometry and properties as well as external influences as stress, temperature or moisture. In addition, age and degradation have a strong influence. Therefore, Ultrasound has been used to monitor concrete samples and structures since decades. However, early applications using conventional techniques as time-of flight or changes in amplitudes have been limited to detect changes in a late stage close to serviceability or ultimate load states. Around 2000, several new, more sensitive techniques adopted from geophysics or other field of material sciences have been introduced to research in ultrasonic monitoring of concrete. The most discussed methodologies are coda wave interferometry, a technique which allows to detect very subtle changes from repeated ultrasonic measurements. Nonlinear acoustic techniques help to identify e. g. cracks even in an inhomogeneous background. Both techniques can be combined. This paper reviews methods and results achieved so far on the laboratory scale and with full scale models the directions for future research and application is given as well. T2 - QNDE 2019 CY - Portland, OR, USA DA - 14.07.2019 KW - Ultrasound KW - Coda wave interferometry KW - Concrete KW - Nonlinear KW - Monitoring PY - 2019 AN - OPUS4-48688 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bassil, A. A1 - Wang, Xin A1 - Chapeleau, X. A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Abraham, O. A1 - Leduc, D. T1 - Distributed fiber optics sensing and coda wave interferometry techniques for damage monitoring in concrete structures JF - Sensors N2 - The assessment of Coda Wave Interferometry (CWI) and Distributed Fiber Optics Sensing (DFOS) techniques for the detection of damages in a laboratory size reinforced concrete beam is presented in this paper. The sensitivity of these two novel techniques to micro cracks is discussed and compared to standard traditional sensors. Moreover, the capacity of a DFOS technique to localize cracks and quantify crack openings is also assessed. The results show that the implementation of CWI and DFOS techniques allow the detection of early subtle changes in reinforced concrete structures until crack formation. With their ability to quantify the crack opening, following early detection and localization, DFOS techniques can achieve more effective monitoring of reinforced concrete structures. Contrary to discrete sensors, CWI and DFOS techniques cover larger areas and thus provide more efficient infrastructures asset management and maintenance operations throughout the lifetime of the structure. KW - Distributed fiber optic sensors KW - Coda wave interferometry KW - Reinforced concrete KW - Cracks KW - Damage detection KW - Structural health monitoring PY - 2019 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-472549 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/s19020356 SN - 1424-8220 VL - 19 IS - 2 SP - 356, 1 EP - 15 PB - MDPI AN - OPUS4-47254 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Abraham, Odile A1 - Larose, Eric T1 - A review on ultrasonic monitoring of concrete: coda wave interferometry and beyond T2 - Proceeding of QNDE 2019 N2 - The propagation of ultrasonic waves in concrete is affected by its micro- and macro-structure, geometry and properties as well as external influences as stress, temperature or moisture. In addition, age and degradation have a strong influence. Therefore, Ultrasound has been used to monitor concrete samples and structures since decades. However, early applications using conventional techniques as time-of flight or changes in amplitudes have been limited to detect changes in a late stage close to serviceability or ultimate load states. Around 2000, several new, more sensitive techniques adopted from geophysics or other field of material sciences have been introduced to research in ultrasonic monitoring of concrete. The most discussed methodologies are coda wave interferometry, a technique which allows to detect very subtle changes from repeated ultrasonic measurements. Nonlinear acoustic techniques help to identify e. g. cracks even in an inhomogeneous background. Both techniques can be combined. This paper reviews methods and results achieved so far on the laboratory scale and with full scale models the directions for future research and application is given as well. T2 - QNDE 2019 CY - Portland, OR, USA DA - 14.07.2019 KW - Ultrasound KW - Coda wave interferometry KW - Concrete KW - Nonlinear KW - Monitoring PY - 2019 SP - Paper 1234 AN - OPUS4-48686 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -