TY - CONF A1 - Unger, Jörg F. T1 - A continuum damage model for the simulation of concrete under cyclic loading N2 - Lifetime aspects including fatigue failure of concrete structures were traditionally only of minor importance. Because of the growing interest in maxing out the capacities of concrete, its fatigue failure under compression has become an issue. A variety of interacting phenomena such as e.g. loss of prestress, degradation due to chemical reactions or creep and shrinkage influence the fatigue resistance. Failure due to cyclic loads is generally not instantaneous, but characterized by a steady damage accumulation. Therefore, a reliable numerical model to predict the performance of concrete over its lifetime is required, which accurately captures order effects and full three-dimensional stress states. Many constitutive models for concrete are currently available, which are applicable for specific loading regimes, different time scales and different resolution scales. However, a key limitation of those models is that they generally do not address issues related to fatigue on a structural level. Very few models can be found in the literature that reproduce deterioration of concrete under repeated loading-unloading cycles. This is due to the computational effort necessary to explicitly resolve every cycle which exceeds the currently available computational resources. The limitation can only be overcome by the application of multiscale methods in time. The objective of the paper is the development of numerical methods for the simulation of concrete under fatigue loading using temporal multiscale methods. First, a continuum damage model for concrete is developed with a focus on fatigue under compressive stresses. This includes the possibility to model stress redistributions and capture size effects. In contrast to cycle based approaches, where damage is accumulated based on the number of full stress cycles, a strain based approach is developed that can capture cyclic degradation under variable loading cycles including different amplitudes and loading frequencies. The model is designed to represent failure under static loading as a particular case of fatigue failure after a single loading cycle. As a consequence, most of the material parameters can be deduced from static tests. Only a limit set of additional constitutive parameters is required to accurately describe the evolution under fatigue loading. Another advantage of the proposed model is the possibility to directly incorporate other multi-physics effects such as creep and shrinkage or thermal loading on the constitutive level. Second, a multiscale approach in time is presented to enable structural computations of fatigue failure with a reduced computational effort. The damage rate within the short time scale corresponding to a single cycle is computed based on a Fourier based approach. This evolution equation is then solved on the long time scale using different implicit and explicit time integration schemes. Their performance and some limitations for specific loading regimes is discussed. Finally, the developed methods will be validated and compared to experimental data. T2 - Conference on Computational Modelling of concrete and concrete structures (EURO_C 2018') CY - Bad Hofgastein, Austria DA - 26.02.2018 KW - Fatigue KW - Concrete KW - Damage PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-48001 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Küttenbaum, Stefan A1 - Braml, T. A1 - Taffe, A. A1 - Maack, Stefan ED - Pellegrino, C. ED - Faleschini, F. ED - Zanini, M.A. ED - Matos, J.C. ED - Casas, J.R. ED - Strauss, A. T1 - From Uncertainty in Measurement to Certainty in Bridge Reassessment N2 - "The reassessment of bridges continues to take great importance both nationally and internationally. A major challenge is to find computation models reflecting the actual properties of the considered structures sufficiently accurate. Besides regular inspections, the conduction of advanced measurements is suitable to generate reliable information about a structure to be assessed. Prior to incorporating measurement results in reassessment, the relevance, the trueness, and the precision of the measured information needs to be stated. On the one hand, the use of information whose quality has not been assessed can lead to errors with serious consequences. On the other, the measurement of irrelevant information is inefficient. Although the use of measured data in assessment is currently mostly unregulated, their appreciation in reliability analyses is beneficial since the built environment can be assessed more realistically. Utilizing NDT in reassessment has the potential to extend remaining lifetimes of a structure, save resources, and improve infrastructural availabilities. The power of judgment regarding the decision on the reliability of an existing structure can be increased. In this contribution, an approach is outlined to process non-destructively gathered measurement data in a comparableway in order to include themeasured information in probabilistic reliability assessments of existing structures. An essential part is the calculation of measurement uncertainties. The effect of incorporating evaluated NDT-results is demonstrated by means of a prestressed concrete bridge and GPR measurements conducted on this bridge as a case-study. The bridge is assessed regarding SLS Decompression using the NDT-results." KW - Reliability KW - Assessment KW - Existing structures KW - NDT KW - Concrete PY - 2022 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91877-4_58 VL - 200 SP - 509 EP - 517 PB - Springer CY - Cham AN - OPUS4-54019 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Jafari, Abbas T1 - Stochastic parameter estimation of a gradient-enhanced damage material model of concrete using variational Bayesian inference N2 - A gradient-enhanced damage material model for concrete simulated by means of the finite element (FE) method is calibrated with respect to important parameters of the involved constitutive law by using the Variational Bayesian method. T2 - UNCECOMP - 4th International Conference on Uncertainty Quantification in Computational Sciences and Engineering CY - Online meeting DA - 28.06.2021 KW - Stochastic model updating KW - Variational Bayesian KW - Gradient-enhanced damage KW - Concrete PY - 2021 AN - OPUS4-54034 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Klimek, André A1 - Stelzner, Ludwig A1 - Hothan, Sascha A1 - Zehfuß, J. T1 - Screening-tests on the susceptibility to spalling of two ordinary concretes N2 - Investigating the spalling behaviour of a concrete mixture using large scale members is complex and expensive. Thus, the susceptibility of concrete to spalling is investigated by means of fire tests on small scale specimens. However, the reduction of the fire exposed surface increases the influence of boundary effects. Macrocracking and the water loss via the lateral surfaces reduce the impact of the thermomechanical and thermohydraulic damage mechanisms and therefore, lower the risk of spalling. Thus, the influence of different restraints on the spalling behaviour of intermediate scaled specimens (Ø=0.47 m; h=0.29 m) was investigated for two ordinary concrete mixtures. Both mixtures had the same composition except the type of aggregate. One mixture contained only quartzitic aggregates, whereas the other mixture was made with basalt grit as coarse aggregates. Applied steel rings restrained the thermal expansion of the specimen and prevented the loss of water, whereas applied steel sheet primarily reduced the loss of water during the fire test. Additionally, the fire exposed surface of one specimen of each mixture was pre-dried under controlled climate conditions and fire tested with applied steel rings. The results show a higher spalling volume for the ring restrained specimens compared to the other covering types. Further, the pre-dried boundary zone leads to delayed and decreased occurrence of spalling compared to the non-dried specimens for the concrete with quartzitic aggregates and to a prevention of spalling for the mixture with basalt aggregates. Additionally, the results show that the influence of the thermomechanical behaviour of the coarse aggregates increases with increasing restraint. The restrained conditions of the specimens with applied steel ring are comparable to the conditions in the centre of a large scale member. This test series is a further step for possible concept of steel ring restraint concrete specimens as “screening-tests” in upcoming projects. T2 - IWCS 2022 CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 12.10.2022 KW - Spalling KW - Fire test KW - Concrete KW - Restraint PY - 2022 SP - 15 EP - 24 PB - Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) CY - Berlin AN - OPUS4-56020 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Klimek, André T1 - Screening-tests on the susceptibility to spalling of two ordinary concretes N2 - Investigating the spalling behaviour of a concrete mixture using large scale members is complex and expensive. Thus, the susceptibility of concrete to spalling is investigated by means of fire tests on small scale specimens. However, the reduction of the fire exposed surface increases the influence of boundary effects. Macrocracking and the water loss via the lateral surfaces reduce the impact of the thermomechanical and thermohydraulic damage mechanisms and therefore, lower the risk of spalling. Thus, the influence of different restraints on the spalling behaviour of intermediate scaled specimens (Ø0.47 m; h=0.29 m) was investigated for two ordinary concrete mixtures. Both mixtures had the same composition except the type of aggregate. One mixture contained only quartzitic aggregates, whereas the other mixture was made with basalt grit as coarse aggregates. Applied steel rings restrained the thermal expansion of the specimen and prevented the loss of water, whereas applied steel sheet primarily reduced the loss of water during the fire test. Additionally, the fire exposed surface of one specimen of each mixture was pre-dried under controlled climate conditions and fire tested with applied steel rings. The results show a higher spalling volume for the ring restrained specimens compared to the other covering types. Further, the pre-dried boundary zone leads to delayed and decreased occurrence of spalling compared to the non-dried specimens for the concrete with quartzitic aggregates and to a prevention of spalling for the mixture with basalt aggregates. Additionally, the results show that the influence of the thermomechanical behaviour of the coarse aggregates increases with increasing restraint. The restrained conditions of the specimens with applied steel ring are comparable to the conditions in the centre of a large scale member. This test series is a further step for possible concept of steel ring restraint concrete specimens as “screening-tests” in upcoming projects. T2 - 7th International Workshop on Concrete Spalling due to Fire Exposure CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 12.10.2022 KW - Spalling KW - Fire test KW - Concrete KW - Restraint PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-56023 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Jafari, Abbas A1 - Titscher, Thomas A1 - Chatzi, E. A1 - Unger, Jörg F. T1 - Variational Bayesian inference of damage in concrete material using spatially-dense data N2 - Numerical simulators, such as finite element models, have become increasingly capable of predicting the behaviour of structures and components owing to more sophisticated underlying mathematical models and advanced computing power. A common challenge lies, however, in calibrating these models in terms of their unknown/uncertain parameters. When measurements exist, this can be achieved by comparing the model response against measured data. Besides uncertain model parameters, phenomena like damage can give rise to further uncertainties; in particular, quasi-brittle materials, like concrete, experience damage in a heterogeneous manner due to various imperfections, e.g. in geometry and boundary conditions. This hardens an accurate prediction of the damaged behaviour of real structures that comprise such materials. In this study, which draws from a data-driven approach, we use the force-version of the finite element model updating method (FEMU-F) to incorporate measured displacements into the identification of the damage parameters, in order to cope with heterogeneity. In this method, instead of conducting a forward evaluation of the model and comparing the model response (displacements) against the data, we impose displacements to the model and compare the resulting force residuals with measured reaction forces. To account for uncertainties in the measurement of displacements, we endow this approach with a penalty term, which reflects the discrepancy between measured and imposed displacements, where the latter is assumed as unknown random variables to be identified as well. A Variational Bayesian approach is used as an approximating tool for computing posterior parameters. The underlying damage model considered in this work is a gradient-enhanced damage model. We first establish the identification procedure through two virtual examples, where synthetic data (displacements) are generated over a certain spatially-dense set of points over the domain. The procedure is then validated on an experimental case-study; namely a 3-point bending experiment with displacement measurements resulting from a digital image correlation (DIC) analysis. T2 - MSE 2022 CY - Online meeting DA - 27.09.2022 KW - Heterogeneity KW - Gradient damage KW - Model updating KW - Variational Bayesian KW - Concrete PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-56625 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Küttenbaum, Stefan T1 - From uncertainty in measurement to certainty in bridge assessment N2 - In this contribution, an approach is outlined to process non-destructively gath-ered measurement data in a comparable way in order to include the measured information in probabilistic reliability assessments of existing structures. An es-sential part is the calculation of measurement uncertainties. The effect of incor-porating evaluated NDT-results is demonstrated by means of a prestressed con-crete bridge and GPR measurements conducted on this bridge as a case-study. The bridge is assessed regarding SLS Decompression using the NDT-results. T2 - 1st Conference of the European Association on Quality Control of Bridges and Structures – EUROSTRUCT2021 CY - Padova, Italy DA - 29.08.2021 KW - Reliability KW - Assessment KW - Existing structures KW - NDT KW - Concrete PY - 2021 AN - OPUS4-53173 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Krütt, Enno T1 - Fatigue induced degradation in pavement concrete and its effect on the alkali-silica-reaction N2 - In recent years the German motorway network has seen an increase in the occurrence of damage to concrete road surfaces that can be attributed to the alkali-silica reaction (ASR). In view of the often drastically reduced service life of road surfaces due to ASR, research activity in this field has notably increased. Alongside preventative measures in concrete technology i.e. the usage of low-alkali cements, the main research focus up to now has been on the development of performance-oriented testing procedures for ASR prevention. The effects of mechanicallyinduced damage resulting from cyclic traffic and climatic loading have previously not been taken into consideration. The assessment of the myriad degradation and transport processes necessary for an understanding of these effects requires close interaction between experiments and corresponding multi-scale models. This contribution is focused on the experiments utilizing innovative testing techniques. The research is founded on a series of fatigue tests performed on large-scale beams with simultaneous tracking of the degradation process using non-destructive evaluation methods. Subsequently, smaller test specimens were extracted from the predamaged beams for further experiments. These experiments included investigation of the influence of fatigue-induced cracks on moisture and alkali transport. Subsequent storage of the small-scale test specimens, with and without cyclic pre-damage, in an ASR-conducive environment then provided initial findings on the influence of fatigue-induced degradation on the ASR. The results show that the degradation process can be well observed with the test Setup developed for the fatigue experiments. Further, a small but noticeable increase of mass Transport due to fatigue-induced degradation was measured, which correspondingly indicated an increased ASR damage potential. T2 - 4th International Conference on Service Life Design for Infrastructures (SLD4) CY - Delft, The Netherlands DA - 27.08.2018 KW - Fatigue KW - Pavement KW - ASR KW - Concrete PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-46199 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Skłodowska, Anna T1 - Acoustic Emission in Research and Practice: Basics, Tools, and Applications N2 - A lecture on the basics of Acoustic Emission (AE) testing in research and practice. The lecture provides a general overview of the basics of AE: what is it? What are the AE sources? How and using which equipment it can be detected? The second part of the presentation focuses on different types of data analysis: parameter- and signal-based approaches and gives a brief overview of the source localization methods, focusing on Geiger's method. The last part of the presentation shows application examples in research and in real-structures monitoring. T2 - CoDA Winter School 2025 and the 12th CoDA Plenary meeting CY - Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany DA - 03.03.2025 KW - Acoustic Emission KW - Source localization KW - SHM KW - Concrete PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-63289 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Diewald, F. A1 - Epple, Niklas A1 - Kraenkel, T. A1 - Gehlen, C. A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Impact of External Mechanical Loads on Coda Waves in Concrete N2 - During their life span, concrete structures interact with many kinds of external mechanical loads. Most of these loads are considered in advance and result in reversible deformations. Nevertheless, some of the loads cause irreversible, sometimes unnoticed changes below the macroscopic scale depending on the type and dimension of the impact. As the functionality of concrete structures is often relevant to safety and society, their condition must be known and, therefore, assessed on a regular basis. Out of the spectrum of non-destructive monitoring methods, Coda Wave Interferometry using embedded ultrasonic sensors is one particularly sensitive technique to evaluate changes to heterogeneous media. However, there are various influences on Coda waves in concrete, and the interpretation of their superimposed effect is ambiguous. In this study, we quantify the relations of uniaxial compression and uniaxial tension on Coda waves propagating in normal concrete. We found that both the signal correlation of ultrasonic signals as well as their velocity variation directly reflect the stress change in concrete structures in a laboratory environment. For the linear elastic range up to 30% of the strength, we calculated a velocity variation of −0.97‰/MPa for compression and 0.33%/MPa for tension using linear regression. In addition, these parameters revealed even weak irreversible changes after removal of the load. Furthermore, we show the time-dependent effects of shrinkage and creep on Coda waves by providing the development of the signal parameters over time during half a year together with creep recovery. Our observations showed that time-dependent material changes must be taken into account for any comparison of ultrasonic signals that are far apart in time. The study’s results demonstrate how Coda Wave Interferometry is capable of monitoring stress changes and detecting even small-size microstructural changes. By indicating the stated relations and their separation from further impacts, e.g., temperature and moisture, we anticipate our study to contribute to the qualification of Coda Wave Interferometry for its application as an early-warning system for concrete structures. KW - Ultrasound KW - Coda Wave Interferometry (CWI) KW - Mechanical Load KW - Microstructure KW - Concrete PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-556878 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15165482 SN - 1996-1944 VL - 15 IS - 16 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - MDPI AN - OPUS4-55687 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maack, Stefan A1 - Küttenbaum, Stefan A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Practical procedure for the precise measurement of geometrical tendon positions in concrete with ultrasonic echo N2 - Existing concrete structures were usually designed for lifetimes of several decades. The current and urgently required efforts to increase sustainability and protect the environment will likely result in extended service lives up to 100 years. To achieve such objectives, it is required to assess structures over their entire lifecycles. Non-destructive testing (NDT) methods can reliably support the assessment of existing structures during the construction, operational, and decommissioning phases. One of the most important and safety-relevant components of a prestressed concrete structure are the tendons. NDT methods such as the ultrasonic echo method are suitable for both the detection and the localization of the tendons, i.e., the measurement of their geometrical position inside the component. The uniqueness of structures, concrete heterogeneity, and varying amounts of secondary components such as the reinforcement represent obstacles in the application of these methods in practice. The aim of this contribution is to demonstrate a practicable procedure, that can be used in the field to determine the parameters required for the measuring data analysis without extensive knowledge about the investigated components. For this purpose, a polyamide reference specimen is used to show which steps are required to obtain reliable imaging information on the position of tendons from the measurement data. The procedure is then demonstrated on a concrete test specimen that covers various relevant and practice-oriented test scenarios, such as varying tendon depths and component thicknesses. T2 - International Conference on Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and Retrofitting (ICCRRR 2022) CY - Cape Town, South Africa DA - 03.10.2022 KW - Validation KW - Non-destructive testing KW - Ultrasonic KW - Reconstruction KW - Concrete KW - Tendon duct PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-559979 DO - https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/202236403007 SN - 2261-263X SP - 1 EP - 8 AN - OPUS4-55997 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schultz, C. A1 - Cunningham, Patrick A1 - Fan, J. A1 - Miller, S.A. T1 - Balancing the Mechanical Performance and Environmental Sustainability of Fiber-Reinforced Concrete N2 - Fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) can have improved durability and tensile properties, potentially enabling the more efficient use of concrete and lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Yet, systematic quantifications of the environmental impacts of FRC, particularly when paired with changes to mechanical properties and the implications for material longevity, are limited. Herein, an assessment following the life-cycle assessment methodology for four common FRCs was performed, namely, those reinforced with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), steel (ST), polypropylene (PP), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The analysis was bound to a cradle-to-gate scope, and solely virgin fiber material production was considered for the environmental impacts. Coupled changes in compressive and tensile strength, environmental impacts, and the role of material longevity and cost relative to unreinforced concrete were examined. Findings from this work show that, similar to unreinforced concrete, cement remains a key source of GHG emissions in FRC production. However, in FRCs fibers can drive additional emissions by up to 55%. Notably, PVA and ST led to the highest impacts and costs, which were minimal for inclusions of PP and PET. Yet ST contributed to the greatest benefits in flexural and compressive strengths. When the effects of longevity were integrated, FRC with PP reinforcement could offer desired emissions reductions with minimal increase in use period and cost, but the other fiber reinforcements considered may need to offer longer service life extension to reduce emissions compared with conventional concrete. These results indicate that FRC can enhance mechanical performance, but fiber type selections should be informed by the design life to achieve actual GHG emissions reductions. KW - Fiber-reinforced concrete KW - Greenhouse gas emissions KW - Concrete KW - Cement KW - Durability PY - 2025 DO - https://doi.org/10.1061/JMCEE7.MTENG-19454 SN - 0899-1561 VL - 37 IS - 7 SP - 04025178-1 EP - 04025178-11 PB - American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) CY - Reston, VA AN - OPUS4-62987 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 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 - JOUR A1 - Abraham, O. A1 - Ferria, H. A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Brühwiler, E. A1 - Dalsgard Sörensen, J. A1 - Klikowicz, P. A1 - Kirsch, F. A1 - Niedermayer, H. A1 - Yalamas, T. T1 - INFRASTAR - Innovation and networking for fatigue and reliability analysis of structures - Training for assessment of risk - H2020 N2 - "INFRASTAR aims to develop knowledge, expertise and skills for optimal and reliable management of structures. The generic methodology is applied to bridges and wind turbines in relation to fatigue offering the opportunity to deal with complementary notions (such as old and new asset management, unique and similar structures, wind and traffic actions) while addressing 3 major challenges: 1/ advanced modelling of concrete fatigue behaviour, 2/new non destructive testing methods for early aged damage detection and 3/probabilistic approach of structure reliability under fatigue. Benefit of cross-experience and inter-disciplinary synergies creates new knowledge. INFRASTAR proposes innovative solutions for civil infrastructure asset management so that young scientists acquire a high employment profile in close dialogue between industry and academic partners. Modern engineering methods, including probabilistic approaches, risk and reliability assessment tools, will take into account the effective structural behaviour of existing bridges and wind turbines by exploiting monitored data. Existing methods and current state-of -the art is based on excessive conservatism which produces high costs and hinders sustainability. INFRASTAR improves knowledge for optimising the design of new structures, for more realistic verification of structural safety and more accurate prediction of future lifetime of the existing structures. That is a challenge for a sustainable development because it reduces building material and energy consumption as well as CO2 production. Within the global framework of optimal infrastructure asset management, INFRASTAR will result in a multi-disciplinary body of knowledge covering generic problems from the design stage process of the new civil infrastructures up to recycling after dismantlement. This approach and the proposed methods and tools are new and allow a step forward for innovative and effective process." KW - Concrete KW - Fatigue KW - Wind turbine KW - Bridge PY - 2018 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-447016 UR - http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/sil/impact/2018/00002018/00000001/art00023 DO - https://doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2018.70 SN - 2398-7073 VL - 2018 IS - 1 SP - 70 EP - 72 PB - Science Impact Ltd. CY - Bristol, UK AN - OPUS4-44701 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Chakraborty, J. A1 - Wang, Xin A1 - Stolinski, M. T1 - Damage Detection in Multiple RC Structures Based on Embedded Ultrasonic Sensors and Wavelet Transform N2 - This paper summarizes the results of research aimed at assessing cracks in reinforced concrete structures using embedded ultrasonic sensors. The diffuse ultrasonic waves were considered to evaluate the health status of the tested structures. There are different algorithms used to detect cracks in the structure, but most studies have been performed on benchmark reinforced concrete (RC) structures and in laboratory conditions. Since there were difficulties with the validity of Damage detection in real structures in the presence of environmental changes and noises, the application of advanced signal processing methods was necessary. Therefore, the wavelet transform was applied to process ultrasonic signals acquired from multiple civil structures. It is shown that the ultrasonic sensors with an applied wavelet transform algorithm on collected signals can successfully detect cracks in the laboratory as well as in a real environment. Experimental results showed a perfect match for detecting damage and quasi-static load in the presence of environmental changes. The results were confirmed with other techniques. In addition, designing an extra filter for removing noises can be avoided by using the applied algorithms. The obtained results confirmed that diffuse ultrasonic sensor methodology with the proposed algorithm is useful and effective in Monitoring real RC structures, and it is better than traditional techniques. KW - Ultrasound KW - Damage KW - Detection KW - Concrete KW - Wavelet PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-523089 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11020056 VL - 11 IS - 2 SP - 56 PB - MDPI AN - OPUS4-52308 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Wang, Xin A1 - Mierschke, Vivien A1 - Bertschat, Anja Sophie T1 - Concepts from seismic interferometry transferred to sonic and ultrasonic concrete inspection and monitoring N2 - Seismic interferometry (SI) deals either with the sensible detection of changes in the subsurface or with the reconstruction of virtual signals between two receivers by crosscorrelation of signals from diffuse sources. These concepts can be applied in NDT in civil engineering for various purposes, e. g. to detect changes in bridges. Here it is demonstrated using data from a reference structure on our test site. Practical applications can be expected in the very near future. T2 - 12th European Conference on Non-Destructive Testing (ECNDT 2018) CY - Gothenburg, Sweden DA - 11.6.2018 KW - Ultrasound KW - Concrete KW - Monitoring KW - Coda KW - Interferometry PY - 2018 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-468465 UR - http://www.ndt.net/?id=22760 SN - 1435-4934 VL - 23 IS - 8 SP - 1 EP - 2 PB - NDT.net CY - Kirchwald AN - OPUS4-46846 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Clauß, F. A1 - Epple, Niklas A1 - Ahrens, M. A. A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Mark, P. T1 - Comparison of Experimentally Determined Two-Dimensional Strain Fields and Mapped Ultrasonic Data Processed by Coda Wave Interferometry N2 - Due to the high sensitivity of coda waves to the smallest structural alterations such as strain, humidity or temperature changes, ultrasonic waves are a valid means to examine entire structures employing networks of ultrasonic transducers. In order to substantiate this ex ante assessment, the viability of measuring ultrasonic waves as a valid point of reference and inference for structural changes is to be further scrutinized in this work. In order to investigate the influence of mechanical strain on ultrasonic signals, a four-point bending test was carried out on a reinforced concrete beam at Ruhr University Bochum. Thus, measurements collected from a network of selected transducer pairings arranged across the central, shear-free segment of the test specimen, were correlated to their respective strain fields. Detected ultrasonic signals were evaluated employing Coda Wave Interferometry. Such analysis comprised the initial non-cracked state as well as later stages with incremental crack depth and quantity. It was to ascertain that the test specimen can in fact be qualitatively compartmentalized into areas of compression and tension identified via Relative Velocity Changes presented in Attribute Maps. However, since results did not entail a zero crossing, i.e., neither positive nor negative values were to be calculated, only relative changes in this work displayed staggered over the height of the object under test, are discussed. Under the given methodological premises, additional information is currently required to make quantitative assertions regarding this correlation of ultrasonic and strain results. This holds true for the comparability of the ultrasonic and strain results for both non-cracked and even the cracked state. KW - Digital image correlation KW - Fiber optic sensors KW - Coda Wave Interferometry KW - Ultrasound KW - Concrete PY - 2020 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-510501 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/s20144023 SN - 1424-8220 VL - 20 IS - 14 SP - Paper 4023, 1 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-51050 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 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 - Rabe, U. A1 - Pudovikov, S. A1 - Herrmann, H.-G. A1 - Wiggenhauser, H. A1 - Prabhakara, Prathik A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Evaluation of retroreflective corner echo for detection of surface breaking cracks in concrete by ultrasound N2 - The retroreflective corner echo is used, for example, in ultrasonic non-destructive testing of metals to find fatigue cracks in tubes or shafts. If the much weaker crack tip signal is additionally detected, the crack length can also be determined. A corner reflection occurs in cases of surface breaking cracks with predominantly perpendicular orientation to the surface. The intensity of the corner reflection depends on the angle of incidence and on the ultrasonic wave mode used. For the reliable detection of vertical surface breaking cracks in metals, transversal waves are commonly used, which propagate at an angle of 37° to 53° to the inspection surface. As shown in this contribution, the wide spread low frequency ultrasonic arrays with dry point contact sources available for ultrasonic testing of concrete also allow to receive corner echoes. These devices generate transversal waves in concrete structures with a large divergence of the sound field. A series of experiments was carried out with such dry point contact arrays on concrete specimens with artificial test defects and controlled induced cracks of different depths. The ultrasonic time-of-flight signals were recorded, exported and reconstructed utilising the SAFT (Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique) algorithm. The SAFT reconstruction parameters were adjusted to visualize the corner echo indication. As will be shown, with this targeted processing, the reproducible detection of surface breaking cracks in concrete is possible. The retroreflective corner echo can thus be exploited in civil engineering for non-destructive inspection of concrete. T2 - NDT-CE 2022 CY - Zurich, Switzerland DA - 16.08.2022 KW - Concrete KW - Crack depth KW - Ultrasound KW - SAFT PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-563365 UR - https://www.ndt.net/article/ndtce2022/paper/27256_manuscript.pdf IS - 27256 SP - 1 EP - 4 PB - NDT.net AN - OPUS4-56336 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rabe, U. A1 - Pudovikov, S. A1 - Herrmann, H.-G. A1 - Wiggenhauser, H. A1 - Prabhakara, Prathik A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Using the Corner Reflection for Depth Evaluation of Surface Breaking Cracks in Concrete by Ultrasound N2 - The corner echo is a well-known effect in ultrasonic testing, which allows detection of surface breaking cracks with predominantly perpendicular orientation to the surface as, for example, corrosion cracks in metal pipes or shafts. This echo is formed by two planes, the surface of the crack and the surface which the crack breaks. It can also be classified as a half-skip method, since a reflection of the pulse occurs on the backwall before the reflection at the defect takes place. In combination with the diffraction from the crack tip, the corner echo also allows crack sizing. As shown in this paper, the corner reflection can be used in civil engineering for nondestructive inspection of concrete. Commercially available low frequency ultrasonic arrays with dry point contact sources generate SH transversal waves with sufficient divergence of the sound field in order to detect corner reflections. Ultrasonic line-scans and area-scans were acquired with a linear array on flat concrete specimens, and the data were reconstructed by the Synthetic aperture focusing technique. If the angles and the area of reconstruction are chosen accordingly, the corner echo reflection can be distinguished from other ultrasonic information. The corner echo can thus be used as a method for deciding whether a crack is a partial-depth crack or a full-depth crack and thus for obtaining a statement about crack depth. This paper presents corresponding experimental results obtained on concrete specimens with artificial test defects and cracks induced under controlled conditions. KW - Ultrasound KW - Crack depth KW - Concrete KW - Corner echo PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-574631 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-023-00956-8 SN - 0195-9298 VL - 42 IS - 2 SP - 1 EP - 19 PB - Springer Nature AN - OPUS4-57463 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Timofeev, Juri A1 - Azari, H. A1 - Satyanarayana, R. T1 - Controlled Creating of Delaminations in Concrete for Nondestructive Testing N2 - Locating and sizing delaminations is a common inspection task in the maintenance and quality control of construction and rehabilitation. Their detection is an important area of application of nondestructive testing in civil engineering (NDT-CE). To improve this application, NDT test systems and test solutions must be compared, for which specimens containing well-defined delaminations are needed to serve as a reference. Currently, there are no widely accepted procedures available for creating such flaws locally and reproducibly. This study presents procedures for creating artificial delaminations repeatably and as close as possible to natural delaminations. To produce the discontinuities only substances were used which can occur in concrete components and do not affect the application of NDT-CE methods. Ultrasonic pulse-echo (UPE) was used to test the flaws in the specimens. The delaminations were created by applying expansive mortar in prepared through holes. Three specimens with two delaminations each were built and tested using UPE. KW - Concrete KW - Reference KW - Delamination KW - Test specimen KW - Non-destructive testing PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-595201 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-023-01044-7 SN - 0195-9298 VL - 43 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 13 PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC AN - OPUS4-59520 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Guangliang, Y. A1 - Mahon, D. A1 - Gardner, S. T1 - Muon tomography applied to assessment of concrete structures: First experiments and simulations. N2 - Non-destructive techniques for reinforced or prestressed concrete inspection 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 new fields of application. As a first step towards practical application in civil engineering 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. In a second step, we have performed simulations to assess the potential for a set of important testing problems such as grouting defects in tendon ducts. The next steps include the development of mobile detectors and optimizing acquisition and imaging parameters. T2 - NDT-CE 2022 CY - Zurich, Switzerland DA - 16.08.2022 KW - Muon tomography KW - Concrete KW - Inspection KW - Simulation PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-563224 UR - https://www.ndt.net/article/ndtce2022/paper/60943_manuscript.pdf SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - NDT.net AN - OPUS4-56322 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schumacher, T. A1 - Bertola, N. A1 - Epple, Niklas A1 - Bruehwiler, E. A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Combined Passive and Active Ultrasonic Stress Wave Monitoring of Concrete Structures: An Overview of Data Analysis Techniques and Their Applications and Limitations N2 - Combined passive ultrasonic (US) stress wave [better known as acoustic emission (AE)] and active US stress wave monitoring has been shown to provide a more holistic picture of ongoing fracture processes, damage progression, as well as slowly occurring aging and degradation mechanisms in concrete structures. Traditionally, different data analysis techniques have been used to analyze the data generated from these two monitoring techniques. For passive US stress wave monitoring, waveform amplitudes, hit rates, source localization, and b-value analysis, among others, have been used to detect and locate cracking. On the other hand, amplitude tracking, magnitude squared coherence (MSC), and coda wave interferometry (CWI) are examples of analyses that have been employed for active US stress wave monitoring. In this paper, we explore some of these data analysis techniques and show where their respective applications and limitations might be. After providing an overview of the monitoring approach and the different data analysis techniques, results and observations from selected laboratory experiments are discussed. Finally, suggestions for further work are proposed. T2 - 11th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring (EWSHM 2024) CY - Potsdam, Germany DA - 11.06.2024 KW - Ultrasound KW - Acoustic emission KW - Concrete KW - Stress PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-604687 UR - https://www.ndt.net/article/ewshm2024/papers/824_manuscript.pdf DO - https://doi.org/10.58286/29863 SN - 1435-4934 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - NDT.net AN - OPUS4-60468 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Thiele, Marc A1 - Petryna, Y. A1 - Rogge, Andreas ED - Saouma, V. ED - Bolander, J. ED - Landis, E. T1 - Experimental investigation of damage evolution in concrete under high-cycle fatigue N2 - The current knowledge about fatigue behavior of concrete is still incomplete. This concerns especially the progress of fatigue which precedes the fatigue failure. Therefore, the process of fatigue itself under cyclic compressive loading was investigated in a systematic and comprehensive way. The aim of this investigation was to obtain a deeper insight and to provide a better understanding of the damage process occurring within the material during fatigue loading. Concrete cylinders were tested with a number of cycles to failure between 106 and 107. To investigate macroscopic and microscopic changes in the material, various methods of non-destructive and destructive testing were used. One main result was, in contrast to other authors, that the investigated changes in macroscopic material behavior could not be explained only by a development of micro-cracks. The results indicated rather, that the related changes in the fatigue behavior are mainly a result of viscous processes in the hardened cement paste, similar to the processes of creep. Based on the experimental results a description of the possible processes was derived which take place in the material structure during fatigue loading and also leads to the observed macroscopic changes in the material behavior. In this context, the results have shown that in case of isotropic material behavior a stiffness reduction related to a scalar value could not capture the damage effect on the stress-strain-relationship caused by fatigue. T2 - The 9th International Conference on Fracture Mechanics of Concrete and Concrete Structures CY - Berkeley, CA, USA DA - 29.5.2016 KW - Fatigue KW - Concrete KW - High-Cycle KW - Damage Evolution PY - 2016 DO - https://doi.org/10.21012/FC9.302 SP - 1 EP - 9 AN - OPUS4-36686 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Voland, K. T1 - Alkali-silica reaction in concrete pavements N2 - A significant number of German concrete motorway pavements have shown damage only a few years after construction. The alkali-silica-reaction (ASR) is often one of the reasons for this damage. German guidelines and regulations focus on the optimisation of the concrete composition to avoid damage due to ASR. Moreover, diverse research projects have dealt with the development and optimisation of ASR performance test methods with and without external alkali supply. However, the influence of other parameters on the occurrence and intensity of a damaging ASR had not yet been taken into account. Such parameters include, e.g., insufficient curing and the modifications of concrete’s porosity due to the use of slip form pavers. Likewise, the increased traffic loading had not yet been considered. The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) assesses these parameters and processes in a number of projects. These projects aim primarily to increase the durability of the concrete pavements, in particular by improving preventive measures that may be taken before or after the construction of concrete pavements. This paper gives a short overview of BAM’s projects concerning ASR in concrete pavements. Furthermore, results regarding the influence of the cyclic traffic loading on ASR are presented. T2 - 8th International conference on concrete under severe conditions - environment & loading (ConSec) CY - Lecco, Italy DA - 13.09.2016 KW - Building materials KW - ASR KW - Concrete KW - Damage PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-39104 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Weise, Frank T1 - Influence of aggregate size on the damage potential of alkal-silica-reaction N2 - The poster shows new results on Alkali-Silica-Reaction (a damage mechanism of concrete). The influence of the aggregate size in the sand fraction is investigated, revealing that different types of aggregate behave in a different way. T2 - 15th International Conference of Alkali Aggregate Reaction in Concrete (ICAAR 2016) CY - Sao Paulo, Brazil DA - 03.07.2016 KW - Alkali-silica-reaction KW - Building materials KW - Concrete KW - Durability PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-36951 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Strangfeld, Christoph T1 - Moisture testing and mapping N2 - Most building materials are porous and hydrophilic. Thus, for condition assessment and damage detection a determination of the material moisture is required. In this lecture, a short overview is given regarding moisture transport in porous media in the hygroscopic range. Then, several non-destructive measurement techniques are introduced. Here, the focus lies on their practical application and limitations. T2 - NDT&E Advanced Training Workshop CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 03.07.2024 KW - Building materials KW - Concrete KW - Material moisture KW - Moisture measurement techniques KW - Moisture transport PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-60605 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Eiz Eddin, Ahmad T1 - Innovative lightweight floors made of prestressed CFRP-reinforced concrete from research to construction practice N2 - The presented joint research project “CaPreFloor”, which started in 2023, aims to revolutionise the building construction practice by employing prestressed textile-reinforced concrete using carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) for the design of lightweight floor elements. This allows the reduction of common steel reinforced concrete floors of 30 cm thickness to 10 cm for office, residential, and hotel buildings. Lower material consumption significantly contributes to the conservation of resources and minimises the carbon footprint. In addition, the prefabrication of these floor elements leads to high and consistent quality, short construction times and enhanced reusability of the components. A team of experts from various fields of research and practice is working on this project to achieve the set goal. T2 - XI International Symposium on Fiber Reinforced Concrete (Befib 2024) CY - Dresden, Germany DA - 16.09.2024 KW - Fire Resistance KW - Sound protection KW - Ceiling KW - Concrete KW - CFRP PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-61126 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Altenburg, Simon A1 - Krankenhagen, Rainer A1 - Bavendiek, F. T1 - Thickness determination of polymeric multilayer surface protection systems for concrete by means of pulse thermography N2 - For thickness determination of polymer based surface protection systems for concrete surfaces, so far only destructive measurement techniques are available. Pulse thermography appears to be well suited for non-destructive thickness evaluation in these systems. Here, we present first results of the development of a respective measurement and analysis procedure. Since surface protection systems consist of a number of layers, a model for the calculation of the surface temperature of a multi-layer structure on a semi-infinite (concrete) substrate in pulse thermography setup was developed. It considers semitransparency of the upmost layer and thermal losses at the surface. It also supports the use of an arbitrary temporal shape of the heating pulse to properly describe the measurement conditions for different heat sources. Simulations for one and three layers on the substrate are presented and first results from fitting the model to experimental data for thickness determination and verification of the model are presented. T2 - QNDE conference 2016 - Review of progress in quantitative nondestructive evaluation CY - Atlanta, GA, USA DA - 18.07.2016 KW - Analytical model KW - Concrete KW - Semitransparency KW - Surface protection KW - Thermography KW - Thickness PY - 2017 SN - 978-0-7354-1474-7 DO - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4974669 SN - 0094-243X VL - 1806 IS - 1 SP - Article UNSP 100004, 1 EP - 10 PB - AIP Publishing AN - OPUS4-39300 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Altenburg, Simon T1 - Thickness determination of polymeric multilayer surface protection systems for concrete by means of pulse thermography N2 - So far, only destructive measurement techniques are available for thickness determination of polymer based surface protection systems for concrete surfaces. Pulse thermography appears to be well suited for non-destructive thickness evaluation in these systems. Here, we present first results of the development of a respective measurement and analysis procedure. Since surface protection systems consist of a number of layers, a model for the calculation of the surface temperature of a multi-layer structure on an infinite (concrete) substrate in pulse thermography setup was developed. It considers semitransparency of the upmost layer and thermal losses at the surface. It also supports the use of an arbitrary temporal shape of the heating pulse to properly describe the measurement conditions for different heat sources. First experimental results regarding the verification of the model are presented. Funding by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is gratefully acknowledged. T2 - QNDE 2016 CY - Atlanta, GA, USA DA - 17.07.2016 KW - Thermography KW - Analytical model KW - Surface protection KW - Concrete KW - Semitransparency KW - Thickness PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-36984 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Skłodowska, Anna T1 - Quantifying Damage Evolution in Concrete: Combining Acoustic Emission and Ultrasonic Testing under Uniaxial Loading N2 - Active-source ultrasonic monitoring using ultrasonic pulse velocity measurements and coda wave interferometry (CWI) can provide information about the evolution elastic properties of concrete with increasing damage. The acoustic emission (AE), a passive method based on "listening” to the radiation of elastic waves in solids caused by irreversible changes within the material structure, gives the first indications of microstructural changes and microcracking. The question is: how the registered microcracking activity alters the elastic properties of concrete? Our study aims to quantify the connection between the evolution of AE events and the overall elastic properties of concrete, assessed via active-source ultrasonic testing. We analyze the spatiotemporal evolution of AE events, changes in wave propagation speed, and nonlinear effects during stepwise quasi-static loading/unloading of concrete specimens. By integrating CWI with AE analysis, we achieve a comprehensive assessment of the evolution of the sample's damage throughout the entire loading process. Our findings underscore the complementary nature of these methods, revealing that a singular approach may not provide a complete picture of the extent of damage. T2 - Talk at Penn State University CY - Old Main, University Park, PA, USA DA - 09.05.2025 KW - Acoustic Emission KW - CODA KW - Passive/active ultrasound KW - Concrete PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-63302 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Inspection and monitoring of massive concrete structures by innovative ultrasonic methods N2 - Presentation on recent progress in ultrasinic testing and monitoring of concrete for massive structures. First, a new instrument (LAUS) for ultrasonic echo testing of thicknesses up to 5 m is shown. A new method to provide better images of the concrete interior, Reverse Mitem Migration (RTM)is presented. Second, the use of embedded ultrasonic transducers and data processing methods borrowed from seismology to detect subtle changes in concrete are documented. T2 - NUCCON 2016 CY - Helsinki, Finland DA - 31.10.2016 KW - Ultrasound KW - Concrete KW - Imaging KW - Monitoring KW - Nuclear PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-38181 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Progress in non-destructive testing and monitoring of concrete N2 - The presentation will give an overview on non-destructive testing techniques being developed at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Germany (BAM). This includes ultrasonic methods, ground penetration radar, Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), infrared thermography, pile testing, sensor technology and building scanner. A focus of the talk will be ultrasonic methods, which are well established in various aspects of concrete testing. They are used for imaging the interior geometry of constructions, estimation of concrete strength or monitoring lab investigations. However, so far the detection of distributed damages, especially in an early stage, has been almost impossible. The arrival of new technologies as embedded transducers and sensitive data processing techniques adopted from seismology has opened new field of work. Recent research has been focused to detect changes in concrete elements induced by stress, temperature, moisture or chemical attacks by permanent monitoring. Techniques as Coda Wave Interferometry can resolve changes in ultrasonic velocity in the order of 1*10-5. In addition, many researchers believe that the investigation of nonlinear effects can be used to characterize damages. The presentation will give a wrap up of ultrasonic techniques currently used in practice. This will include echo based methods as multi-channel/multi-offset imaging of structural elements using commercial and prototype devices. Imaging methods as SAFT and RTM will be shortly discussed. The focus will be on the emerging techniques used for monitoring. New types of sensors will be presented as well as the devices used in laboratory and field applications. Insight will be given on the various influence factors on ultrasonic signals and various ways of feature extraction and data processing. The results of lab experiments will be shown to demonstrate the detection of various kind of damages from mechanical load, ASR, corrosion to fatigue. The experiences with our first installations in real constructions (bridges, tunnel) will also be presented. T2 - CIES Research Seminar, University of New South Wales CY - Sydney, Australia DA - 13.12.2016 KW - Ultrasound KW - Concrete KW - Monitoring KW - Imaging PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-38731 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - State-of-the-art of ultrasonic monitoring of concrete N2 - Ultrasonic methods are well established in various aspects of concrete testing. They are used for imaging the interior geometry of constructions, estimation of concrete strength or monitoring lab investigations. However, so far the detection of distributed damages, especially in an early stage, has been almost impossible. The arrival of new technologies as embedded transducers and sensitive data processing techniques adopted from seismology has opened new field of work. Recent research has been focused to detect changes in concrete elements induced by stress, temperature, moisture or chemical attacks by permanent monitoring. Techniques as Coda Wave Interferometry can resolve changes in ultrasonic velocity in the order of 1*10-5. In addition, many researchers believe that the investigation of nonlinear effects can be used to characterize damages. The workshop will give a wrap up of ultrasonic techniques currently used in practice. This will include echo based methods as multi-channel/multi-offset imaging of structural elements using commercial and prototype devices. Imaging methods as SAFT and RTM will be shortly discussed. The focus will be on the emerging techniques used for monitoring. New types of sensors will be presented as well as the devices used in laboratory and field applications. Insight will be given on the various influence factors on ultrasonic signals and various ways of feature extraction and data processing. The results of lab experiments will be shown to demonstrate the detection of various kind of damages from mechanical load, ASR, corrosion to fatigue. The experiences with or first installations in real constructions (bridges, tunnel) will also be presented. T2 - The 8th Australian Network of Structural Monitoring Annual Workshop CY - Melbourne, Australia DA - 29.11.2016 KW - Ultrasound KW - Concrete KW - Monitoring KW - Imaging PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-38727 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst 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 - Progress in non-destructive testing and monitoring of concrete N2 - Überblicksvortrag zu Aktivitäten von BAM-8.2 T2 - Seminar der Universität Lund, Fakultät, Technische Geologie und NDT CY - Lund, Sweden DA - 8.3.2018 KW - Concrete KW - Non-Destructive Testing PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-44575 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Ultrasound: From Imaging to Monitoring N2 - Review of ultrasonic echo imaging and ultrasonic monitoring techniques applied to concrete structures, especially bridges. Includes newest research results from BAM. T2 - Transport Research Board Annual Meeting, Workshop 1647 CY - Washington, DC, USA DA - 6.1.2018 KW - Ultrasound KW - Imaging KW - Monitoring KW - Concrete KW - Bridges PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-44587 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 - Abraham, O. A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Addressing the need to monitor concrete fatigue with non destructive testing: preliminary results of infrastar European project N2 - Fatigue is one of the most prevalent issues, which directly influences the service life expectancy of concrete structures. Fatigue has been investigated for years for steel structures. However, recent findings suggest that concrete structures may also be significantly subjected to the fatigue phenomena that could lead to premature failure of certainfatigue prone structural elements. To date, fatigue of reinforced concrete has been given little focus. and Kknowledge on the influence factors and durability/capacity effects on this material should be improved. Current technological means to measure fatigue in civil structures like bridges and wind turbines (both onshore and offshore) are outdated, imprecise and inappropriate. Meanwhile, this topic has got much more attention as dynamic loading on concrete structures plays an increasing role, e.g. in bridges with increasing traffic and heavier trucks, in wind energy production due to inherent vibrations e.g. in offshore wind turbine support structures affected by wind and waves. The European Innovative Training Networks (ITN) Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project INFRASTAR (Innovation and Networking for Fatigue and Reliability Analysis of Structures - Training for Assessment of Risk) provides research training for 12 PhD students. The project aims to improve knowledge for optimizing the design of new structures as well as for more realistic verification of structural safety and more accurate prediction of the remaining fatigue lifetime of existing structures. First, the INFRASTAR research framework is detailed. Then it will be exemplified through the presentation of the major results of the four PhD students involved in the work package dealing with auscultation and monitoring. This includes the development and improvement of Fiber Optics (FO) and Coda Wave Interferometry (CWI) for crack sizing and imagery, new sensor technologies and integration, information management, monitoring strategy for fatigue damage investigation and lifetime prediction. T2 - ASNT SMT/NDT-CE 2018 CY - New Brunswick, NJ, USA DA - 27.8.2018 KW - Concrete KW - Fatigue KW - Non-destructive testing KW - Reliabiilty PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-45862 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 - JOUR A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Ultrasonic monitoring of concrete constructions using embedded transducers N2 - Ultrasonic transmission measurements are used to monitor concrete elements mostly on a laboratory scale since decades. Recently, coda wave interferometry, a technique adapted from seismology, has been introduced to civil Engineering experiments. It can be used to reveal subtle changes in concrete samples and even large construction elements without having a transducer directly at the location where the change is taking place. The methodology works best with embedded transducers to avoid coupling issues or excessive environmental influence. These transducers can be used for newly built and existing structures. Recently, large concrete beams have been equipped with a network of transducers and loaded until failure. Using code wave interferometry, it was possible to visualize stress fields and damaged areas. T2 - International Symposium on Structural Health Monitoring and Nondestructive Testing CY - Saarbrücken, Germany DA - 4.10.2018 KW - Ultrasound KW - Monitoring KW - Concrete PY - 2018 UR - http://www.ndt.net/?id=23542 SN - 1435-4934 VL - 23 IS - 12 SP - 1 EP - 6 PB - NDT.net CY - Kirchwald AN - OPUS4-46842 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 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 - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Long term monitoring of concrete structures using innovative NDT and SHM approaches: NDT-CE 4.0 N2 - In Germany, a large amount of reinforced and/or prestressed concrete structures are approaching the end of their life cycle. Many of them already show a significant reduction of operability or capacity. The issue is most obvious, but not limited to traffic or energy related infrastructure. These structures have to be inspected and assessed on a regular basis. More and more permanent monitoring systems are installed to follow the degradation and to give pre-warning before failure. While the basic mandatory inspection (e. g. of bridges) is still limited to visual examination and tap tests, more advanced investigation tools as ultrasound or radar are used more and more often. Monitoring e. g. by acoustic emission systems is increasingly used e.g. for detection of wire breaks in prestressed structures. The presentation gives an overview on the state of the art and an outlook on innovative systems, including the integration in modern data processing, evaluation, display and archive systems. T2 - European NDE Symposium for NPP CY - Online Meeting DA - 04.05.2021 KW - NDT KW - Nuclear KW - Concrete PY - 2021 AN - OPUS4-52624 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst 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 - Maack, Stefan T1 - Practical procedure for the precise measurement of geometrical tendon positions in concrete with ultrasonic echo N2 - Existing concrete structures were usually designed for lifetimes of several decades. The current and urgently required efforts to increase sustainability and protect the environment will likely result in extended service lives up to 100 years. To achieve such objectives, it is required to assess structures over their entire lifecycles. Non-destructive testing (NDT) methods can reliably support the assessment of existing structures during the construction, operational, and decommissioning phases. One of the most important and safety-relevant components of a prestressed concrete structure are the tendons. NDT methods such as the ultrasonic echo method are suitable for both the detection and the localization of the tendons, i.e., the measurement of their geometrical position inside the component. The uniqueness of structures, concrete heterogeneity, and varying amounts of secondary components such as the reinforcement represent obstacles in the application of these methods in practice. The aim of this contribution is to demonstrate a practicable procedure, that can be used in the field to determine the parameters required for the measuring data analysis without extensive knowledge about the investigated components. For this purpose, a polyamide reference specimen is used to show which steps are required to obtain reliable imaging information on the position of tendons from the measurement data. The procedure is then demonstrated on a concrete test specimen that covers various relevant and practice-oriented test scenarios, such as varying tendon depths and component thicknesses. T2 - International Conference on Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and Retrofitting (ICCRRR 2022) CY - Cape Town, South Africa DA - 03.10.2022 KW - Validation KW - Non-destructive testing KW - Ultrasonic KW - Reconstruction KW - Concrete KW - Tendon duct PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-55999 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - 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 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 T1 - NDT CE from simple detectors to deep insight and quantitative structural assessment N2 - Non-destructive testing methods are available in civil engineering for decades to estimate concrete properties or to detect flaws and features. But recently we have seen the dawn of next-generation tools, methods, and applications. Some of them will be discussed in the web talk: – Better tools: deeper and more detailed insight into concrete constructions – Better methods: Quantitative use in probabilistic structural assessment – Better rules: Towards standardization, qualification, and certification – Better application: Digitalization and Elimination of the boundaries between NDT, SHM, and BIM: NDT-CE 4.0 Not enough? I might show, how cosmic rays might become a game-changer in NDT-CE. This live webinar record was provided by https://eurostruct.org T2 - Eurostruct Live Talk CY - Online meeting DA - 12.05.2021 KW - NDT-CE KW - Concrete KW - Ultrasound KW - Muons PY - 2021 AN - OPUS4-54158 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst 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 - CONF A1 - Liao, Chun-Man A1 - Hicke, Konstantin A1 - Bernauer, F. A1 - Igel, H. A1 - Hadziioannou, C. A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst ED - Isecke, B. ED - Krieger, J. T1 - Multi-Sensor measurements on a large-scale bridge model N2 - This contribution introduces an investigation of a large-scale prestressed concrete bridge model (“BLEIB” structure at the BAM-TTS open air test site) by means of on-site cooperative measurements. This bridge has an external post-tensioning system and has been instrumented with the ultrasonic transducers, temperature sensors and optical fibers for Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). Our experiment was designed to test the suitability of the novel 6C sensors developed within the framework of the GIOTTO project – the IMU50. The IMU50 sensor enables vibration measurements in translation along three axes and rotation around three axes. The geophone sensors were considered for complementary measurements of vertical velocity response. In the experiment, several perturbations were achieved by controlling the external influence factors such as loading and prestressing changes. The aim of the integrated measurement strategy was to fully observe the results of the condition change and to verify the effectiveness of multiple sensors for bridge monitoring. T2 - 5. Brückenkolloquium CY - Ostfildern, Germany DA - 06.09.2022 KW - Concrete KW - Bridge KW - Monitoring KW - Rotation KW - Distributed acoustic sensing PY - 2022 SN - 978-3-8169-3549-0 SP - 223 EP - 230 PB - Expert Verlag CY - Tübingen AN - OPUS4-55625 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Liao, Chun-Man A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Multi-Sensor measurements on a large-scale bridge model N2 - This contribution introduces an investigation of a large-scale prestressed concrete bridge model (“BLEIB” structure at the BAM-TTS open air test site) by means of on-site cooperative measurements. This bridge has an external post-tensioning system and has been instrumented with the ultrasonic transducers, temperature sensors and optical fibers for Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). Our experiment was designed to test the suitability of the novel 6C sensors developed within the framework of the GIOTTO project – the IMU50. The IMU50 sensor enables vibration measurements in translation along three axes and rotation around three axes. The geophone sensors were considered for complementary measurements of vertical velocity response. In the experiment, several perturbations were achieved by controlling the external influence factors such as loading and prestressing changes. The aim of the integrated measurement strategy was to fully observe the results of the condition change and to verify the effectiveness of multiple sensors for bridge monitoring. T2 - 5. Brückenkolloquium CY - Ostfildern, Germany DA - 06.09.2022 KW - Concrete KW - Bridge KW - Monitoring KW - Rotation KW - Distributed acoustic sensing PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-55626 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Ebell, Gino A1 - Poltavtseva, M. A1 - Mietz, Jürgen ED - Ottosen, L. T1 - Electrochemical investigation of carbon-based conductive coatings for application as anodes in ICCP system of reinforced concrete structures N2 - Carbon-based conductive coatings are complex composites, consisting of an organic or inorganic binder and conductive carbon components, for application as anodes in impressed current cathodic protection systems of reinforced concrete structures. The electrochemical properties of three coatings at different humidity and in saturated calcium hydroxide solution were studied by electrochemical methods, such as electrochemical impedance measurement, measuring of open circuit potential over time and galvanostatic polarization. T2 - International RILEM Conference on Materials, Systems and Structures in Civil Engineering 2016 CY - Lyngby, Denmark DA - 21.08.2016 KW - ICCP KW - Coating KW - Cunductive KW - Corrosion KW - reinforcement KW - Concrete KW - Cathodic protection PY - 2016 SN - 978-2-35158-176-6 SN - 978-2-35158-177-3 VL - Proceedings PRO 111 SP - 43 EP - 46 PB - RILEM Publications S.A.R.L. CY - Paris, France AN - OPUS4-37216 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Ebell, Gino T1 - Electrochemical investigation of carbon-based conductive coatings for application as anodes in ICCP system of reinforced concrete structures N2 - Carbon-based conductive coatings are complex composites, consisting of an organic or inorganic binder and conductive carbon components, for application as anodes in impressed current cathodic protection systems of reinforced concrete structures. The electrochemical properties of three coatings at different humidity and in saturated calcium hydroxide solution were studied by electrochemical methods, such as electrochemical impedance measurement, measuring of open circuit potential over time and galvanostatic polarization. T2 - MSSCE Materials, Systems and Structures in Civil Engineering 2016 CY - Lyngby, Denmark DA - 21.08.2016 KW - ICCP KW - Cathodic protection KW - Corrosion KW - Concrete KW - Reinforcement PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-37215 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Ebell, Gino T1 - Corrosion of galvanized reinforcement in carbonated concrete N2 - Corrosion of galvanized steel in carbonated concrete is different from the corrosion of reinforcement made of carbon steel. This is based on the corrosion mechanism of galvanized steel in dependence of the pH-value of carbonated concrete. To describe the influence of a lower pHvalue on the corrosion activity of galvanized reinforcement, different electrochemical measurements were made. The anodic and cathodic partial reaction were investigated by galvanostatic pulse measurements and potentiodynamic measurements. Especially the galvanostatic pulse measurements can describe the influence of the lower pH-value by the anodic polarization resistance with pt = 20 sec. (polarization time). Additionally, corrosion current measurements were performed, coupled with potential measurements, between galvanized steel in carbonated and non-carbonated concrete. Normally, the potential measurements are an indicator to localize the anodic and cathodic parts of a macro system. In this case the cathode was more negative than the anode before they were coupled. After the coupling of the two specimens the mixed potential was much more positive than the single potential of the galvanized steel in carbonated concrete. It increased up to the potential range of the non-carbonated specimens. This means that in case of carbonated outer areas, the embedded galvanized steel forms the cathodic part of a macro element. T2 - Eurocorr 2016 CY - Montpellier, France DA - 11.09.2016 KW - Galvanized KW - Rebar KW - Concrete KW - Corrosion PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-37432 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Ebell, Gino T1 - Corrosion of Steel in Concrete and Corrosion Behavior of Stainless Steel N2 - In order to obtain a statement on the corrosion resistance of stainless steel against pitting corrosion, a well-tested measuring arrangement is required. For this purpose, the so-called ECISS test can be used to determine the critical chloride content. This makes it possible to assess the corrosion resistance of various stainless steels that have different chromium contents. T2 - ISO-TC17-SC16-WG13 Expertensitzung CY - Online meeting DA - 11.01.2022 KW - Corrosion KW - Lochkorrosion KW - Chloride induced corrosion KW - Concrete KW - Stainless steel PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-54239 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Boschmann Käthler, C. A1 - Angst, U. A1 - Ebell, Gino A1 - Elsener, B. T1 - Chloride-induced reinforcement corrosion in cracked concrete: the influence of time of wetness on corrosion propagation N2 - Literature data on the influence of concrete cracks on corrosion propagation of reinforcing steel are contradictory. This might be due to very different exposure and test conditions but also to a lack of time-resolved data in cyclic wetting–drying exposure. Here, the influence of the environmental conditions on the corrosion rates in cracked concrete is studied experimentally. The results show that the corrosion rate in cracked concrete depends on the duration of wetting and drying phases and the relative humidity (RH) during the drying phase. The lower the ambient RH in the drying phase, the faster the cracks dry, which depresses the corrosion rate in the periods between the wetting events. A model is proposed to estimate corrosion rates in cracked concrete cyclic wetting/drying exposure. KW - Korrosion KW - Corrosion KW - Concrete PY - 2020 DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/1478422X.2020.1789371 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - Taylor Francis Online CY - London AN - OPUS4-50986 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Neugum, Tim T1 - Fire tests on HPC columns with and without restraint N2 - Usually, the fire resistance of load-bearing structural elements is determined based on testing of separate members. In this test method, a mechanical load is applied to the member in a force-controlled manner and is held constant throughout the fire test. After applying the mechanical load, the thermal exposure begins according to the ISO 834 fire curve. In this conventional test method, no interaction between the member and the entire building structure is considered. In buildings, the surrounding structure can restrain the thermal expansion of a member in case of fire. This may have both positive and negative effects on the fire resistance of this structural element. T2 - CrossFire – Advanced Structural Fire Engineering at intersections among disciplines CY - Como, Italy DA - 26.05.2025 KW - Substructure method KW - Structural interaction KW - Fire resistance KW - Column KW - Concrete PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-63351 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ebell, Gino A1 - Achenbach, R. A1 - Angst, U. A1 - Brem, M. A1 - Dauberschmidt, C. A1 - Eichler, T. A1 - Hariri, K. A1 - Harnisch, J. A1 - Keßler, S. A1 - Mayer, T.F. A1 - Mietz, Jürgen A1 - Pruckner, F. T1 - Elektrochmische Potentialmessung zur Detektion von Bewehrungsstahlkorrosion N2 - Die Potentialmessung kann zum Auffinden korrosionsaktiver Bereiche neben Stahlbetonbauwerken auch bei Spannbetonbauwerken angewandt werden, die mit Spannstählen im direkten Verbund hergestellt werden. Bei Vorspannsystemen mit metallischen Hüllrohren im nachträglichen Verbund ist eine Aussage über den Korrosionszustand des Hüllrohrs, nicht aber des Spannstahls möglich. Messungen an Spannbetonbauteilen erfordern grundsätzlich die besonderen Kenntnisse eines Spezialisten. KW - Korrosion KW - Potentialfeldmessung KW - Corrosion KW - Concrete PY - 2021 SN - 978-3-947971-16-9 VL - Merkblatt B 03 SP - 1 EP - 22 PB - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Zerstörungsfreie Prüfung (DGZfP) CY - Berlin AN - OPUS4-53091 LA - deu AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maack, Stefan T1 - Zerstörungsfreie Bauwerksprüfung – Möglichkeiten und Grenzen bei der Bewertung von Baukonstruktionen aus Beton N2 - Die zerstörungsfreie Prüfung im Bauwesen (ZfPBau) spielt eine zentrale Rolle bei der Neubewertung der Zuverlässigkeit bestehender Bauwerke. Angesichts steigender Belastungen durch den Verkehr und zunehmender Umwelteinflüsse wird der Einsatz moderner Prüfverfahren immer wichtiger, um die Sicherheit und Langlebigkeit unserer Infrastruktur zu gewährleisten. Es wird ein Überblick über den Stand der Technik sowie ein Ausblick auf wissenschaftliche Entwicklungen zu aktuellen Themen gegeben. T2 - 6. WÜRTH Ingenieurwerkstatt CY - Künzelsau, Germany DA - 06.05.2025 KW - Life management KW - Non destructive testing and evaluation KW - Concrete KW - Civil engineering KW - State-of-the-art PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-63402 LA - deu AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Strangfeld, Christoph T1 - Moisture testing and mapping N2 - Most building materials are porous and hydrophilic. Thus, for condition assessment and damage detection a determination of the material moisture is required. In this lecture, a short overview is given regarding moisture transport in porous media in the hygroscopic range. Then, several non-destructive measurement techniques are introduced. Here, the focus lies on their practical application and limitations. T2 - NDT&E Advanced Training Workshop CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 25.06.2025 KW - Building materials KW - Concrete KW - Material moisture KW - Moisture measurement techniques KW - Moisture transport PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-63608 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ebell, Gino A1 - Burkert, Andreas A1 - Fischer, Joachim A1 - Lehmann, Jens A1 - Müller, Thoralf A1 - Meinel, Dietmar A1 - Paetsch, O. T1 - Investigation of chloride-induced pitting corrosion of steel in concrete with innovative methods N2 - The combination of electrochemical and 3D computed tomography (CT) investigations offers the possibility of verifying electrochemical measurements non-destructively. Determining the steel surfaces damaged by pitting corrosion allows developing specimens having damage pattern corresponding to practice. Corrosion phenomena like decoupled pitting corrosion cannot be verified by electrochemical measurements only, but with the combination of those two kinds of investigations it is possible. Another advantage is the minimization of the number of samples. The classical experimental procedure requires the destruction of samples after each damage step.This can be avoided by the use of 3D computed tomography. As long as the corrosion phenomena are completely within the examination zone shown by the 3D computed tomography, the electrochemical measurements can be calculated on an area basis to get the specific corrosion rate or polarization resistance. KW - Corrosion KW - Concrete KW - 3D x-ray KW - Corrosion rate PY - 2016 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/maco.201608969 SN - 1521-4176 SN - 0947-5117 SN - 0043-2822 VL - 67 IS - 6 SP - 583 EP - 590 PB - Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA CY - Weinheim AN - OPUS4-36341 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pittrich, Tim A1 - Weise, Frank A1 - Stelzner, Ludwig T1 - The impact of blended cements on the spalling behavior of concrete at elevated temperatures: a review N2 - The cement and concrete industries are striving to reduce the CO2 emissions caused by the production of Portland cement. An effective way to achieve this is to replace Portland cement clinker with more environmentally friendly supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) to produce blended cements. A variety of different SCMs are used today, from fly ash to more exotic options such as rice husk ash or waste glass powder. Depending on its material properties, concrete exposed to fire may experience spalling caused by thermomechanical and thermohydraulic mechanisms. Severe spalling leads to a reduction in the cross-section and exposure of the reinforcement, jeopardizing the load-bearing capacity of the concrete element. The use of blended cements changes the concrete properties which can affect spalling behavior at high temperatures. The link between high temperature and spalling behavior of concrete with blended cements has been investigated in several studies. A review of the existing literature led to the conclusion that the cement type influences the spalling behavior of concrete. However, the relationship does not appear to be clear, as there are contradictions and inconsistencies between the evaluated results. Therefore, further in-depth studies will help to gain a more precise understanding of the effects of blended cements on the spalling behavior of concrete at elevated temperatures. KW - Fire-induced concrete spalling KW - Concrete KW - Blended cements KW - SCM KW - Filler PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-635182 DO - https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-025-02713-x SN - 1359-5997 VL - 58 IS - 5 SP - 1 EP - 21 PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC AN - OPUS4-63518 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Muon tomography applied to assessment of concrete structures: First experiments and simulations. N2 - Non-destructive techniques for reinforced or prestressed concrete inspection 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 new fields of application. As a first step towards practical application in civil engineering 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. In a second step, we have performed simulations to assess the potential for a set of important testing problems such as grouting defects in tendon ducts. The next steps include the development of mobile detectors and optimizing acquisition and imaging parameters. T2 - NDT-CE 2022 CY - Zurich, Switzerland DA - 16.08.2022 KW - Muon tomography KW - Concrete KW - Inspection KW - Simulation PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-56323 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Abraham, O. T1 - Infrastar Training School on Fatigue and Reliability Analysis of Structures - Training for Assessment of Risk N2 - The Infrastar training school provides lectures and hands-on training to Master and PhD students, early-stage researchers and (young) professionals on all aspects of asset management of civil infrastructures with respect to fatigue of materials. It is organized yearly since 2019 and up to 20 profiles are selected to attend the 3.5-day training. A team of 7 teachers provides insight in multi-disciplinary and intersectoral basic concepts in three core fields, ranging from the design to the dismantling of the structures (bridges and wind turbines): 1. Monitoring and auscultation, 2. Structural and action models, 3. Reliability, risk and decision analyses. Each year, a recognized expert is invited to deliver a keynote lecture to raise interest in a specific aspect of one of the fields covered. The presentation is recorded and published on the training school website. T2 - NDT-CE 2022 CY - Zurich, Switzerland DA - 16.08.2022 KW - Doctoral School KW - Fatigue KW - Reliability KW - Concrete PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-56349 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maack, Stefan A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Imaging of Ultrasonic Echo Measurements for Reconstruction of Technical Data of Bridges – Possibilities, Limitations and Outlook N2 - When reassessing existing concrete bridges, the challenge is often to obtain missing or incomplete information on the internal structure. In particular, the number and position of the existing reinforcement as well as the geometric dimensions of the components are of interest. Non-destructive testing methods, like radar or ultrasound, which work on the basis of the pulse-echo method, have been established for this purpose, as they only require access to the component from one side. The measurement data recorded on the structure require pre-processing to be able to reproduce the internal structure geometrically accurately. Besides different steps of data processing, the geometrical reconstruction of the measured data based on the Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (SAFT) is state of the art today. In this paper, the technical possibilities of the ultrasonic echo method are presented based on measurements in the laboratory and on a real bridge structure. The precision of the reconstruction and its limitations are shown. In addition to the state of the art SAFT technique, open questions and the latest research approaches, such as imaging by reverse time migration (RTM) including initial results are discussed. T2 - 13th German-Japanese Bridge Symposium CY - Osaka, Japan DA - 29.08.2023 KW - Bridge KW - Non destructive testing and evaluation KW - Concrete KW - Validation PY - 2023 SP - 1 EP - 8 AN - OPUS4-58327 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maack, Stefan A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Imaging of Ultrasonic Echo Measurements for Reconstruction of Technical Data of Bridges – Possibilities, Limitations and Outlook N2 - When reassessing existing concrete bridges, the challenge is often to obtain missing or incomplete information on the internal structure. In particular, the number and position of the existing reinforcement as well as the geometric dimensions of the components are of interest. Non-destructive testing methods, like radar or ultrasound, which work on the basis of the pulse-echo method, have been established for this purpose, as they only require access to the component from one side. The measurement data recorded on the structure require pre-processing to be able to reproduce the internal structure geometrically accurately. Besides different steps of data processing, the geometrical reconstruction of the measured data based on the Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (SAFT) is state of the art today. In this paper, the technical possibilities of the ultrasonic echo method are presented based on measurements in the laboratory and on a real bridge structure. The precision of the reconstruction and its limitations are shown. In addition to the state of the art SAFT technique, open questions and the latest research approaches, such as imaging by reverse time migration (RTM) including initial results are discussed. T2 - 13th German-Japanese Bridge Symposium CY - Osaka, Japan DA - 29.08.2023 KW - Bridge KW - Non destructive testing and evaluation KW - Concrete KW - Validation PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-58328 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Elastic Reverse Time Migration for Improved Ultrasonic Imaging of Concrete Constructions N2 - The ageing concrete infrastructure worldwide requires a thorough inspection and assessment. The traditional visual and tap testing methods required by many national and international standard have been meanwhile amended by more sophisticated tools like ultrasonic or radar echo technologies. While they can provide a much more detailed image of the interiors of concrete constructions, there are still several unsolved testing tasks on the wish list, such as the reliable sizing of internal objects, e.g. tendon ducts. Reverse Time Migration (RTM) is an imaging technique which is in use in the oil and gas industry for the exploration of new resources with seismic waves as a standard tool. Since about ten years there has been R&D effort to use RTM for imaging of ultrasonic echo data. As it uses the entire wavefield, RTM has some advantages compared to traditional SAFT, e.g. the ability to image vertical structures or the backside of objects. However, this comes with the cost of having to perform full wavefield simulations. We have adopted, improved, and used open source 2D full elastic codes (P/SV waves and SH waves) from geophysics to evaluate the capabilities and limitations of RTM for the imaging of certain features in concrete constructions. We can show the advantages of SH-wave RTM in comparison to SAFT, acoustic RTM and P/SV-based RTM. The findings are demonstrated based on simulated and real data, using a reference test specimen available at BAM. Position and diameter of tendon ducts have been determined with a sub-cm accuracy. T2 - ISNT NDE 2024 CY - Chennai, India DA - 12.12.2024 KW - NDT-CE KW - Ultrasound KW - Imaging KW - Reverse Time Migration KW - Concrete KW - RTM PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-62203 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pauli, Jutta A1 - Ramírez, A. A1 - Crasselt, C. A1 - Schmidt, W. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute T1 - Utilizing optical spectroscopy and 2',7'-difluorofluorescein to characterize the early stages of cement hydration N2 - The increasingly sophisticated nature of modern, more environmentally friendly cementitious binders requires a better understanding and control particularly of the complex, dynamic processes involved in the early phase of cement hydration. In-situ monitoring of properties of a constantly changing system over a defined period of time calls for simple, sensitive, fast, and preferably also non-invasive methods like optical spectroscopy KW - Flourescence KW - Optical probe KW - Sensor KW - Dye KW - Flourescin KW - Photophysics KW - PH KW - Quantum yield KW - Quality assurance KW - Mechanism KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Building material KW - Hydration KW - Process monitoring PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-537176 DO - https://doi.org/10.1088/2050-6120/ac2da0 SN - 2050-6120 VL - 10 IS - 1 SP - 2 EP - 13 PB - IOP Science AN - OPUS4-53717 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dominguez-Bureos, Marco A1 - Sens-Schönfelder, Christoph A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Hadziioannou, Céline T1 - Stress- and Time-dependent Variations of Elastic Properties for Integrity Assessment in a Reinforced Concrete Test Bridge N2 - In lab experiments, it has been observed that the stress–and time-dependent elastic properties of a complex material at a structural scale perform accordingly to its composition at a microstructural level. We seek complementary practices to the current wavefield-based non-destructive testing techniques to assess not only the integrity level of civil structures but also the microstructural elements that contribute to it. In this paper, we study the systematic evolution of elastic properties of concrete as an alternative to investigate the density of micro imperfections in an outdoor-conditioned concrete structure. We estimate 5-second relative velocity changes in four locations on a Test bridge subjected to the action of vertical impulsive sources, at different prestressing levels (dynamic effects at different static conditions). We describe the structure’s stress- and time-dependent elastic response by means of acoustoelastic effect and Slow-dynamic processes, respectively. We also estimate the conventional ultrasound pulse velocity and perform a cooperative integrity analysis of the structure using the three elastic phenomena. Our findings reveal: 1) The presence of soft microstructures and their orientation’s influence on the acoustoelastic effect and Slow-dynamics in field-conditioned concrete structures. 2) The relation of low ultrasound pulse velocities with high acoustoelastic effect and high magnitudes and variability of Slow-dynamics. 3) Different elastic behaviours on the north and south spans of the bridge, suggesting different heterogeneity levels on the analysed locations of the concrete beam. KW - Concrete KW - Ultrasound KW - Nonlinear KW - Elastic properties KW - Damage PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-640064 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-025-01257-y SN - 0195-9298 VL - 44 IS - 4 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC AN - OPUS4-64006 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Muon tomography - ready for practical application? N2 - Security and nuclear safeguards, but not yet in civil engineering. The potential is enormous, as muon tomography could replace traditional X-ray imaging of infrastructure, a method that was popular in the past but has mostly been abandoned due to concerns about radiation safety. In 2020, a report on the first large-scale muon tomography experiment on a reinforced concrete specimen was published. However, robust mobile detectors and faster data acquisition methods are still needed. This is now changing, however. Prototype mobile detectors have been announced or are in development, and data acquisition time has been reduced from weeks to days. This presentation will showcase current developments and focus on a validation experiment at BAM. T2 - NDT-CE 2025 - The International Symposium on Nondestructive Testing in Civil Engineering CY - Izmir, Türkiye DA - 24.09.2055 KW - Muon tomography KW - Bridge inspection KW - Concrete PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-64256 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Maack, Stefan T1 - Baulicher IST-Zustand zur Bewertung von Betonbrücken auf der Grundlage messtechnischer Kennwerte - ZfPStatik N2 - Das Projekt „ZfPStatik“ entwickelt eine Handlungsempfehlung zur Bewertung bestehender Bauwerke mit Hilfe zerstörungsfreier Messdaten. Durch die Bauwerksprüfungen können Unsicherheiten bei der Nachrechnung reduziert werden, wodurch realistischere Beurteilungen der Standsicherheit und Gebrauchstauglichkeit ermöglicht werden. Zudem wird die Entwicklung neuer Ingenieurdienstleistungen gefördert. Zerstörungsfreie Prüfverfahren haben insgesamt das Potential, die Entscheidungsgrundlagen für die Beurteilung und Erhaltung bestehender Bauwerke zu verbessern. T2 - 11. Jahrestagung des DAfStb mit 63. Forschungskolloquium der BAM CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 16.10.2024 KW - Life management KW - Non destructive testing and evaluation KW - Concrete KW - Civil engineering KW - State-of-the-art PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-61439 LA - deu AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bertola, Numa A1 - Schumacher, Thomas A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Brühwiler, Eugen T1 - Combining passive and active ultrasonic stress wave monitoring for the characterization of the early-age properties of a UHPFRC beam N2 - This article focuses on the characterization of the early-age properties of Ultra-High-Performance Fiber-Reinforced Cementitious Composite (UHPFRC), which is becoming popular for designing lightweight and durable structures. Due to the large proportion of cement in the mix, the hardening of UHPFRC is significantly faster than conventional concrete. Therefore, the development of UHPFRC properties, such as the elastic modulus, is difficult to monitor as it happens while elements are within the formwork. For this reason, the hydration process of UHPFRC elements is not fully understood yet. A combined passive (or acoustic emission) and active ultrasonic stress wave monitoring approach has the potential to characterize structures made of cementitious materials over their entire service duration. Using a network of embedded ultrasonic transducers, monitoring can start only a few instants after casting. A UHPFRC beam with a T-shaped cross-section and a length of 4.2 m was constructed and instrumented with 24 transducers as well as 15 thermocouples. Monitoring results lead to the characterization of the development of the early-age UHPFRC properties on the structural-element scale while the specimen is within the formwork. The continuous monitoring approach enabled accurate estimations of the spatial and temporal evolution of the modulus of elasticity. Thanks to this novel combination of monitoring techniques, the early age properties of UHPFRC, which were measured at the material scale, are confirmed at the structural scale for the first time. KW - Concrete KW - UHPFRC KW - Acoustic emission KW - Ultrasonic monitoring KW - Coda wave interferometry PY - 2025 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2025.140319 SN - 0950-0618 VL - 466 SP - 1 EP - 18 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-63448 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Sein, Sander A1 - Kervalisvil, Andrei A1 - Wöstmann, Jens A1 - Helm, Marek T1 - Muon tomography - ready for practical application? N2 - Muon tomography uses naturally occurring nuclear particles to 'X-ray' technical objects. It has applications in security and nuclear safeguards, but not yet in civil engineering. The potential is enormous, as muon tomography could replace traditional X-ray imaging of infrastructure, a method that was popular in the past but has mostly been abandoned due to concerns about radiation safety. In 2020, a report on the first large-scale muon tomography experiment on a reinforced concrete specimen was published. However, robust mobile detectors and faster data acquisition methods are still needed. This is now changing, however. Prototype mobile detectors have been announced or are in development, and data acquisition time has been reduced from weeks to days. This presentation will showcase current developments and focus on a validation experiment at BAM. T2 - NDT-CE 2025 - The International Symposium on Nondestructive Testing in Civil Engineering CY - Izmir, Türkiye DA - 24.09.2025 KW - Concrete KW - Muon tomography KW - Inspection PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-642517 DO - https://doi.org/10.58286/31696 SN - 1435-4934 VL - 30 IS - 10 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - ndt.net AN - OPUS4-64251 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Neugum, Tim T1 - Application of the substructure method to assess the fire resistance of thermally restrained columns N2 - Usually, the fire resistance of load-bearing structural elements is determined by single members testing. A mechanical load is applied to the member in a force-controlled manner and is maintained constant throughout the fire test. After applying the mechanical load, the thermal exposure starts according to the ISO 834 fire curve. In this conventional test method, no interaction between the tested member and the entire building structure is considered. In buildings, the surrounding structure can restrain the thermal expansion of a member in case of fire. This may have both positive and negative effects on the fire resistance of this structural element. Several years ago, the Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering (ISISE) at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und prüfung (BAM) in Germany carried out fire tests on circular and square steel-reinforced concrete columns with restrained thermal expansion. BAM´s column test furnace allows the specimen to be subjected to thermal exposure and mechanical loading simultaneously. In addition, this device has a substructure test module, which can also provide restrained test conditions. In an ongoing research project at BAM and Technische Universität Braunschweig, the effect of restrained test conditions on the behaviour of steel-reinforced columns under fire exposure is further investigated. T2 - 8th International RILEM Workshop on Concrete Behaviour due to Fire Exposure CY - Krakow, Poland DA - 18.09.2025 KW - Substructure method KW - Surrounding structure KW - Fire resistance KW - Column KW - Concrete PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-64584 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Neugum, Tim A1 - Stelzner, Ludwig A1 - Häßler, Dustin A1 - Zehfuß, Jochen A1 - Hothan, Sascha T1 - Application of the substructure method to assess the fire resistance of thermally restrained columns N2 - Usually, the fire resistance of load-bearing structural elements is determined by single members testing. A mechanical load is applied to the member in a force-controlled manner and is maintained constant throughout the fire test. After applying the mechanical load, the thermal exposure starts according to the ISO 834 fire curve. In this conventional test method, no interaction between the tested member and the entire building structure is considered. In buildings, the surrounding structure can restrain the thermal expansion of a member in case of fire. This may have both positive and negative effects on the fire resistance of this structural element. Several years ago, the Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering (ISISE) at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und prüfung (BAM) in Germany carried out fire tests on circular and square steel-reinforced concrete columns with restrained thermal expansion. BAM´s column test furnace allows the specimen to be subjected to thermal exposure and mechanical loading simultaneously. In addition, this device has a substructure test module, which can also provide restrained test conditions. In an ongoing research project at BAM and Technische Universität Braunschweig, the effect of restrained test conditions on the behaviour of steel-reinforced columns under fire exposure is further investigated. T2 - 8th International RILEM Workshop on Concrete Behaviour due to Fire Exposure CY - Krakow, Poland DA - 18.09.2025 KW - Substructure method KW - Surrounding structure KW - Fire resistance KW - Restrained columns KW - Concrete PY - 2025 SP - 1 EP - 2 AN - OPUS4-64582 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram A1 - Alexander, Mark A1 - John, Vanderley T1 - Education for sustainable use of cement based materials N2 - Structural design and application have always been linked to the compressive strength of concrete as the main relevant criterion. This was justifiable in the past, where concrete consisted of water, ordinary Portland cement and aggregates, but this concept is no longer relevant for modern and more sustainable cement and concrete. Despite these new developments, existing standards, guidelines and academic curricula have not been much updated and are still used worldwide. There is a need to change this situation by proper education of the users. This overview describes the challenges that arise at a user Level from the higher complexity of modern concrete, and defines needs and requirements for enhanced applicability of sustainable concrete concepts. Furthermore, recommendations are given on how better concrete practice can be communicated to all the involved parties, from civil and design engineers to constructors and site-appliers on the construction site. KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Sustainability KW - Environment KW - Carbon footprint KW - Education KW - Climate PY - 2018 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0008884616307189?via%3Dihub DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconres.2017.08.009 SN - 0008-8846 SN - 1873-3948 VL - 114 SP - 103 EP - 114 PB - Elsevier AN - OPUS4-47673 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram T1 - Promising bio-based material solutions for more sustainable concrete N2 - Today, concrete engineers can vary consistencies between very stiff and self-compacting. At the same time engineers can opt for a vast variety of binders. The possibility to use optimised mineral binders and to tailor rheological properties of concrete eventually opened up the path to multiple new technologies, where design criteria are no longer limited to the Young’s modulus and the compressive strength, but often comprise additional added value. It can therefore be concluded that the capability to control the rheology and the interactions particles can be considered as the catalyst for concrete innovations such as polymer modified cementitious composites (PCC) self-compacting concrete (SCC), high-performance concrete (HPC), ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) or strain hardening cement based composites (SHCC). In the same way rheology modifying additions, SCMs and admixtures will become key parameters in mastering the challenges of the next decades such as: - Additive manufacturing/3D-printing - Overcoming pumping height limitations - Casting at extreme temperatures - Tailored rheology at delivery In many regions in the Southern hemisphere the effective use of SCMs, additions and chemical admixtures for concrete could significantly contribute to solve problems induced by the challenging climatic conditions, but particularly in many countries with challenging climatic conditions, it is difficult to use them, due to lacking local supply and supply infrastructure, and often the awareness of the value of local mineral resources is missing. However, the long distance transportation of mineral resources and chemicals is not very environmentally friendly and the economic consequences are dramatic. However, bio-based constituents and chemicals have been used in construction for ages effectively. Due to the enormous relevance of binders, fillers and rheology modifying admixtures it is worthwhile to recollect that nature provides an enormous variety of products that can be used readily or with low processing. Today, the use of petrol based polycarboxylate ether superplasticizers has become quite common in concrete technology due to their versatility, but their uncomplicated and cost efficient availability is limited in many countries in the world. However, alternatives are available, which can be found locally. In addition many agricultural wastes today are dumped, although they could be converted to reactive ashes easily. Plant extracts have been used to modify the properties of concrete for long time. These plants are typically regionally abundantly available, cheap, and they are environmental friendly. They do not require special caring for seedlings, weeding or manuring to grow since they grow wildly. The talk will present an overview of various options for binders, fillers and rheology modifying admixtures, that can be found in nature, and that may become a real alternative, once their interaction within the complex cementitious system is well understood. T2 - Peak Forum on Sustainable Civil Engineering Materials CY - Shanghai, China DA - 18.05.2017 KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Sustainability KW - Bio-based materials KW - Polysaccharides KW - Supplementary cementitious materials PY - 2017 AN - OPUS4-41031 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Akindahunsi, A. A. A1 - Uzoegbo, H. Ch. A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram ED - Schmidt, Wolfram ED - Priebe, Nsesheye Susan T1 - Effect of Cassava Starch on Shrinkage Characteristics of Concrete N2 - The use of starch and its derivatives in concrete as an admixture to modify relevant properties of concrete is on the increase in recent times. It is known to modify the rheology, to affect the hydration kinetics of cement, and influence on initial and final setting time of cement. This paper examines the effect of cassava starch on concrete. shrinkage properties of concrete, with and without starch addition, were studied. Various percentages (0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2 %) of starches by weight of cement were added to concrete mixes prepared in the laboratory. Shrinkage tests were conducted for duration of up to one year. The result show that concretes with starch additions exhibit lower shrinkage, which is an indication the addition of starch as admixture in concrete improves the ability of the concrete reduce shrinkage problems. T2 - 2nd International Conference on Advances in Cement and Concrete Technology in Africa CY - Dar es Salaam, Tanzania DA - 27.01.2016 KW - Cassava KW - Starch KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Shrinkage PY - 2016 SN - 978-3-9817502-3-2 N1 - Geburtsname von Priebe, Nsesheye Susan: Msinjili, N. S. - Birth name of Priebe, Nsesheye Susan: Msinjili, N. S. VL - 187 SP - 196 PB - Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) CY - Berlin AN - OPUS4-36880 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram A1 - Ramirez Caro, Alejandra A1 - Sojref, Regine A1 - Mota Gassó, Berta ED - Greim, M. ED - Kusterle, W. ED - Teubert, O. T1 - Contribution of the coarse aggregates to rheology - effects of flow coefficient, particle size distribution, and volume fraction N2 - In order to observe the effect of the aggregate phases between 2 mm and 16 mm without overlap with rheological effects induced by the cement hy-dration and without interactions with a threshold fine sand particle size that affects both, paste and aggregates, rheological experiments were conducted on a limestone filler based paste mixed with aggregates up to 16 mm. Vari-ous aggregate fractions were blended and mixed with the replacement paste in different volumetric ratios. The dry aggregates’ flow coefficients were determined and compared to yield stress and plastic viscosity values at different aggregate volume fractions. The results indicated that the flow coefficient is not a suitable parameter to predict the performance of the aggregates in the paste. It was shown that the yield stress of pastes is largely determined by the blend of different aggregate fractions, while the plastic viscosity to large extend depends upon the coars-est aggregate fraction. Based on the results, ideal aggregate composition ranges for minimised yield stress are presented. For the plastic viscosity no such grading curves to achieve minimum values could be found, but high viscosity curves are identified. KW - Rheology KW - Flow Coefficient KW - Particle Size Distribution KW - Volume Fraction KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Reference Material KW - Limestone Filler PY - 2018 SN - 978-3-7469-1878-5 SP - 96 EP - 108 PB - tredition GmbH CY - Hamburg AN - OPUS4-44434 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Barucker-Sturzenbecher, Meike A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram ED - Schmidt, Wolfram T1 - Learning from the future - How children of Mukuru fancy the city of tomorrow N2 - Sustainability means meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of the next generations. How can we meet the needs of the next generations, if we do not even know what these needs are? If we do not listen to the next generation and learn from them? Do we even meet the needs of today for everyone on earth? T2 - ISEE Africa - Innovation, Science, Engineering, Education CY - Nairobi, Kenya DA - 30.01.2019 KW - Urban planning KW - Concrete KW - Mukuru KW - Africa KW - Sustainability PY - 2019 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-484832 UR - http://isee-africa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Innovation-Science-Engineering-Education_High-Quality.pdf SN - 978-3-9818564-2-2 SP - 194 EP - 197 PB - Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) CY - Berlin AN - OPUS4-48483 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stohl, Leonie A1 - Tonon, Chiara A1 - Cook, Jake A1 - Gorbushina, Anna A1 - Dehn, Frank A1 - von Werder, Julia T1 - Understanding bioreceptivity of concrete: realistic and accelerated weathering experiments with model subaerial biofilms N2 - Vertical greening systems are a promising solution to the increasing demand for urban green spaces, improving environmental quality and addressing biodiversity loss. This study facilitates the development microbially greened algal biofilm facades, which offer a low maintenance vertical green space. The study focuses on concrete as a widely used building material and explores how physical surface characteristics impact its bioreceptive properties. Concrete samples, produced from the same mix but differing in surface structure, were subjected to a laboratory weathering experiment to assess their bioreceptivity. A novel inoculation method was employed, involving a single initial inoculation with either alga ( Jaagichlorella sp.) alone, or a model biofilm consisting of a combination of the alga ( Jaagichlorella sp.) with a fungus ( Knufia petricola). The samples underwent four months of weathering in a dynamic laboratory setup irrigated with deionized water to observe subaerial biofilm attachment and growth. The formation of subaerial biofilms was monitored with high resolution surface imaging, colorimetric measurements and Imaging Pulse Amplitude Modulated Fluorometry (Imaging PAM-F), with Imaging PAM-F proving the most effective. Statistical analysis revealed that by impacting surface pH value and water retention capability, surface structures significantly influence microbial growth and that the concrete’s bioreceptivity can be influenced through thoughtful design of the materials surface. The inoculation of algae combined with a fungus facilitated the formation of a stable subaerial biofilm, enabling algae to colonize a surface structure that it could not colonize alone. This finding highlights the importance of modelling synergistic interactions present in natural biofilms. KW - Bioreceptivity KW - Concrete KW - Biofilm PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-653105 DO - https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-025-02864-x SN - 1359-5997 VL - 59 IS - 2 SP - 1 EP - 18 PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC AN - OPUS4-65310 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - von Werder, Julia T1 - Bioreceptive Building Facades: Codesigning with nature N2 - Building envelopes represent a key interface between solid substrates, the biosphere, and the atmosphere, and consequently serve as natural habitats for subaerial biofilms. This study investigates strategies to enhance the bioreceptivity of concrete cladding to support microalgae‑rich biofilms as a sustainable alternative to biocide‑dependent facade systems. Using a controlled dual‑species biofilm model and assessing algal vitality via PAM fluorometry, we examined how concrete composition and surface properties influence colonization dynamics. The results demonstrate that substrate pH and carbonation state are primary determinants of both biofilm establishment and organismal vitality, whereas nutrient supplementation exerts comparatively minor effects. Adhesion assays indicate that moderate mechanical stress can increase biofilm robustness, and laboratory rain simulations show that surface texture and near‑surface porosity promote water retention and enhance biofilm attachment. A synergistic interaction between the algal and fungal components was observed under specific stress conditions, offering a potential explanation for the reduced performance of biofilms when transitioning from ideal laboratory settings to outdoor environments. Overall, the findings highlight that the development of stable, photosynthetically active biofilm facades requires careful optimization of organism growth, physiological performance, and long‑term adhesion to the substrate. T2 - SASBE 2025: Smart and Sustainable Built Environment CY - Lille, France DA - 03.11.2025 KW - Concrete KW - Bioreceptivity KW - Laboratory test KW - Biofilm KW - Fluorometry PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-65446 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - von Werder, Julia T1 - Greening Concrete with biofilms: Codesigning with nature N2 - uilding envelopes act as artificial lithic surfaces and natural substrates for subaerial biofilms, whose establishment depends on surface bioreceptivity. This study investigates how concrete cladding can be engineered to support microalgae‑dominated biofilms. A multi‑stage experimental framework—ranging from petri‑dish cultivation and adhesion testing to laboratory weathering simulations and outdoor exposure—was applied. A reproducible dual alga–fungus model biofilm enabled controlled assessment, with algal vitality quantified using PAM fluorometry. Results identify pH and carbonation as primary determinants of successful colonization, while nutrient addition has only minor influence. Adhesion tests show that moderate stress can enhance resilience to hydrodynamic forces. Rain‑simulation experiments highlight the importance of surface texture and near‑surface porosity for water retention, microbial attachment, and sustained growth. A synergistic interaction between algae and fungi under stress conditions may explain the poor outdoor performance of biofilms cultivated under ideal laboratory conditions. Overall, optimizing photosynthetic efficiency, organismal growth, and adhesion strength is essential for developing durable algal biofilm‑based façade systems. T2 - 4th International Conference of Sustainable Building Materials CY - Eindhoven, The Netherlands DA - 10.08.2025 KW - Concrete KW - Bioreceptivity KW - Laboratory test KW - Biofilm KW - Fluorometry PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-65447 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Epple, Niklas A1 - Sanchez Trujillo, Camila Andrea A1 - Hau, Julia A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst A1 - Malm, F. T1 - Structural Monitoring in an Urban Underground Metro Station Using Cod N2 - Active ultrasonic monitoring with coda wave interferometry has demonstrated its potential for structural Health monitoring in concrete structures. This study investigates its application using ultrasonic transducers embedded in the ceiling of a subway station in Munich, Germany. We evaluate the impact of environmental conditions, specifically electromagnetic interference and temperature, on data quality, as well as the influence of regular loading from passing trams. Results indicate that electromagnetic interference significantly affects measurements, while temperature effects remain minimal due to the station’s stable thermal environment. Long-term measurements and a controlled load test show that both dynamic and static loading from trams induce ultrasonic velocity changes of only 0.01%–0.06%. Although the experiment demonstrates the capacity to detect structural responses and supports the feasibility of long-term monitoring, improved electromagnetic shielding and Hardware reliability are required for successful future applications. T2 - NDT-CE 2025 CY - Izmir, Turkey DA - 24.09.2025 KW - Coda Wave Interferometry (CWI) KW - Structural health monitoring (SHM) KW - Concrete KW - Ultrasonic testing KW - Urban infrastructure PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-654619 DO - https://doi.org/10.58286/31706 SN - 1435-4934 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - e-Journal of Nondestructive Testing (eJNDT) AN - OPUS4-65461 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Epple, Niklas T1 - Structural Monitoring in an Urban Underground Metro Station Using Coda Wave Interferometry N2 - Active ultrasonic monitoring with coda wave interferometry has demonstrated its potential for structural health monitoring in concrete structures. This study investigates its application using ultrasonic transducers embedded in the ceiling of a subway station in Munich, Germany. We evaluate the impact of environmental conditions, specifically electromagnetic interference and temperature, on data quality, as well as the influence of regular loading from passing trams. Results indicate that electromagnetic interference significantly affects measurements, while temperature effects remain minimal due to the station’s stable thermal environment. Long-term measurements and a controlled load test show that both dynamic and static loading from trams induce ultrasonic velocity changes of only 0.01%–0.06%. Although the experiment demonstrates the capacity to detect structural responses and supports the feasibility of long-term monitoring, T2 - NDT-CE 2025 CY - Izmir, Türkiye DA - 24.09.2025 KW - Coda Wave Interferometry (CWI), KW - Coda Wave Monitoring KW - Concrete KW - Ultrasonic testing KW - Urban infrastructure PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-65462 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram ED - Priebe, Nsesheye Susan ED - Schmidt, Wolfram T1 - Why Africa can spearhead innovative and sustainable cement and concrete technologies globally N2 - The perception of concrete in the society as well as in the politics is rather negative. This becomes obvious in the fact that the phrase “concrete jungle” has become synonym for hapless living with no perspectives. In politics and research funding, it is also not easy to create a broader audience, since concrete is falsely considered as old-fashioned material that is sufficiently understood today and does not need further considerations, particularly compared to allegedly newer materials. However, particularly since the last two decades the technology has completely changed. Binders of today are no more the same binders as used before, and concrete mixture compositions of today diverge quite significantly from compositions in the past. There is little understanding world-wide about that. This causes that potentials the concrete technology bears are wasted. In the broadly found opinion that concrete is old-fashioned and ugly, it is ignored that architectural sins are not inherent to the material, which actually is extremely versatile and CO2-friendly compared to all other construction materials available. It is also ignored that 98% of the outer Earth’s crust are made of the elements cement and concrete are made from, and therefore it will be an illusion to believe that the complementary 2% can create materials to develop regions and infrastructures in less developed areas in the world. For betterment in Africa the infrastructural development should have highest priority, since poor connections between settlements are responsible for enormous Price increases [2], and urban traffic congestion is responsible for an incredible loss of productivity. It is not unrealistic to assume that earners that are dependent on a car get stuck in traffic about 3-4 hours per day in cities like Lagos, Nairobi or Dar es Salaam. However, the traffic congestions do not only affect the car owners negatively but the living of the entire urban population every day. Besides infrastructure, housing should be the other priority, since a large part of the African population does not live in adequate condition. This is a societal problem, since unequal Distribution of wealth is a major driving force for instability in societies. The latter has a global impact, since 8 many phenomena that can be observed all over the world such as political radicalism, xenophobia, terrorism, and migration can often be linked to instable societies. However, the importance of infrastructure has an even wider range. Most African countries go through a change process recently. In order to strengthen very positive perspectives, the focus in politics and research funding is put on issues such as agriculture, energy, and health, which are without doubt extremely important issues. However, it is typically overlooked that all enhancements in these areas can only become effective, when an infrastructure is created to support the implementation of better concepts. Mobility is the key to a prosperous future, and mobility can only be granted by infrastructural construction activities. Hence, compared to many other regions in the world, cement and concrete technologies have a significantly higher relevance in Africa. T2 - 2nd Symposium on Knowledge Exchange for Young Scientists (KEYS) CY - Accra, Ghana DA - 7.6.2016 KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Sustainability KW - Carbon dioxide KW - Polysaccharides KW - Cassava KW - Rheology PY - 2016 SN - 978-3-9817853-1-9 N1 - Geburtsname von Priebe, Nsesheye Susan: Msinjili, N. S. - Birth name of Priebe, Nsesheye Susan: Msinjili, N. S. VL - 2 SP - 7 EP - 19 PB - Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) CY - Berlin AN - OPUS4-40974 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram T1 - Bio-adhesives and bio-chemicals from bio-mass N2 - After a brief introduction into past and modern concrete, the relevance of sustainable concrete technologies is emphasised from a global perspective. In order to minimise the environmental impact of cement and concrete in the world, solutions for alternative binder materials as well as rheology and performance modifying additives are presented based on local bio-based resources. However, the perception of bio-based constituents is typically rather negative in construction materials and its application is often limited to low-end construction. In order to show that this is not inevitable, the lecture ends with a number of case studies for the use of bio-based materials for high performance concrete applications. T2 - Sustainable Adhesives from Bio-Mass (SAB) Symposium CY - Greensboro, North Carolina, USA DA - 26.01.2017 KW - Starch KW - Bio-based materials KW - Superplasticizer KW - Ash KW - Concrete KW - Cement PY - 2017 AN - OPUS4-43544 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram ED - Beushausen, Hans T1 - Application of a cusum control system for enhanced robustness of the flow properties of self-compacting concrete N2 - Control chart systems are used in quality management systems to keep production processes stable. In concrete production they are often applied for the control of the compressive strength. The most efficient control chart systems are cumulated sums (cusum), which help to observe deviations from a targeted value. Unlike alternative observation chart systems that focus on process data evaluation, cusum observations react very rapidly on systematic process changes in processes. Therefore, the cusum method is particularly suitable if immediate counteractions have to be taken, like in the case of fresh concrete properties of self-compacting concrete (SCC), which can have severe influences on the durability and mechanical strength of concrete. The rheology of SCC can be affected by an enormous variety of influencing factors, from raw material properties to handling or environmental temperature. The present study shows that regardless of the material based influencing parameter for a rheology change, a steady slump flow can be achieved only by adding supplementary superplasticizer in case of loss of flow and adding stabilising agent (ST) in case of increased flow if the respective V-mask indicates a systematic change. A reference SCC was artificially manipulated in order to achieve realistic experimental data for flowability and flowability changes due to changes in the raw material properties. The results point out that productions with applied cusum methods were capable of keeping the target slump flow deviation within approximately 1% only, while productions without applied cusum method deviated up to 14% and more from the target. T2 - fib Symposium 2016. Performance-Based Approaches for Concrete Structures. CY - Cape Town, South Africa DA - 21.11.2016 KW - Concrete KW - Self-compacting concrete KW - cusum KW - control chart KW - quality control KW - robustness PY - 2016 SN - 978-2-88394-121-2 SP - 106-1 EP - 106-10 PB - Fédération internationale du béton ( fib) CY - Lausanne, Switzerland AN - OPUS4-40976 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram A1 - Mota, Berta A1 - Ramirez Caro, Alejandra T1 - The action of aggregates on concrete rheology N2 - Most factors acting on concrete rheology work at an extremely small-scale level. Influencing factors in the millimetre or centimetre area are essentially restricted to sand and aggregates. The latter, however, make up 50 to 70% of the total volume of most concretes – a fact often ignored in research on controlling concrete processing properties. Whereas suitably chosen concrete admixtures and additives can influence rheology in a very targeted manner, sand and aggregates are less suitable for controlling rheology but nonetheless contribute to the rheology of the Overall system. The actions of sand and aggregate can impose themselves upon the actions of admixtures and additives and, in unfavourable circumstances, even render them redundant. For this reason, any results concerning the processability of binding agent systems can only be transferred to concrete with great care. It is important to better understand the action of sand and aggregates in order to be able to harmonise them in such a way that they complement the action of superplasticisers positively, instead of working against them. Savings on costs can also be made by this targeted fine-tuning. KW - Rheology KW - Aggregates KW - Viscosity KW - Yield stress KW - Concrete PY - 2018 VL - 3 SP - 42 EP - 49 PB - ad-media GmbH CY - Cologne AN - OPUS4-47045 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram ED - Priebe, Nsesheye Susan T1 - Future civil engineering challenges - Skill requirements, new professional profiles and implementation N2 - Urbanisation, habitat, environment, infrastructure and sustainability are major global challenges of the 21st century. By planning, exploiting of resources, building, and maintaining, civil engineers and relevant adjacent disciplines have been carrying a large responsibility for the existing environmental problems. Civil engineers are responsible for 70% of all material uses in the world, and civil construction has been dominating the growth of the developing world for the next decades, with enormous impact on the global climate as well as the distribution of wealth and quality of living in the world. Today a variety of sustainable construction concepts have been developed and discussed. Recently a UNEP report was published, which provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges and potentials in the future from a scientific and industrial point of view. Sustainable solutions based on abundantly available resources (pozzolana and clay) or on renewable instead of limited industrial by-products (e.g. agricultural waste ashes) and new construction echnologies do exist. By applying, promoting and developing the implementation of the existing knowledge into real life constructions, civil engineers also hold the key for the mitigation of the global challenges. Using best practice sustainable construction solutions is particularly of highest importance in the developing world, since the implementation at an early stage creates the highest leverage for positive effects. T2 - 3rd Symposium on Knowledge Exchange for Young Scientists (KEYS) CY - Johannesburg, South Africa DA - 26.6.2017 KW - Civil Engineering KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Global engineering KW - Nano engineered materials KW - Sustainability PY - 2017 SN - 978-3-9818270-7-1 N1 - Geburtsname von Priebe, Nsesheye Susan: Msinjili, N. S. - Birth name of Priebe, Nsesheye Susan: Msinjili, N. S. VL - 3 SP - 9 EP - 14 PB - Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) CY - Berlin AN - OPUS4-40975 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram T1 - Promising bio-based rheology modifying agents for concrete N2 - Today, concrete engineers can vary consistencies between very stiff and self-compacting. The possibility to tailor rheological properties of concrete eventually opened up the path to multiple new technologies, where design criteria are no longer limited to the Young’s modulus and the compressive strength, but often comprise additional added value. It can therefore be concluded that the capability to control the rheology of concrete systems can be considered as the catalyst for concrete innovations such as polymer modified cementitious composites (PCC) self-compacting concrete (SCC), high-performance concrete (HPC), ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) or strain hardening cement based composites (SHCC). In the same way rheology modifying admixtures will become key parameters in mastering the challenges of the next decades such as: - Additive manufacturing/3D-printing - Overcoming pumping height limitations - Casting at extreme temperatures - Tailored rheology at delivery In many regions in the Southern hemisphere, and particularly in Africa, the effective use of chemical admixtures for concrete could significantly contribute to solve problems induced by the challenging climatic conditions, but particularly in Africa it is difficult to use them, due to lacking local supply and supply infrastructure. For Africa, concrete admixtures are largely shipped or transported from Europe, the Arabian Peninsula, or Asia. The long distance transportation of chemicals is not very environmentally friendly and the economic consequences are dramatic: the agents are difficult to purchase, expensive, and there is not a large variety of products available in the market. However, bio-based chemicals have been used in construction for ages effectively. Due to the enormous relevance of rheology modifying admixtures it is worthwhile to recollect that nature provides an enormous variety of chemicals that can be used readily or with low processing. Today, the use of petrol based polycarboxylate ether superplasticizers has become quite common in concrete technology due to their versatility, but their uncomplicated and cost efficient availability is limited in most countries in Africa. However, alternatives are available, which can be found in many regions. Plant extracts have been used to modify the properties of concrete for long time. These plants are typically regionally abundantly available, cheap, and they are environmental friendly. They do not require special caring for seedlings, weeding or manuring to grow since they grow wildly. The talk will present an overview of various options for rheology modifying admixtures, that can be found in nature, and that may become a real alternative, once their interaction within the complex cementitious system is well understood. T2 - Rheologie komplexer Fluide: Theorie, Experiment und Anwendung, DRG/ProcessNet | Gemeinsame Diskussionstagung CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 13.3.2017 KW - Africa KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Admixtures KW - Polysaccharides KW - Cassava KW - Starch KW - Triumfetta Pendrata A. Rich KW - Nkui PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-40979 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram ED - Banjad Pecur, Ivana ED - Baricevic, Ana ED - Stirmer, Nina ED - Bjegovic, Dubravka T1 - Potentials for sustainable cement and concrete technologies - Comparison between Africa and Europe N2 - The fundamental knowledge about cement and concrete has made enormous progress over the last decades, and today it would be possible to find optimised sustainable concrete solutions tailored for every given boundary framework and raw material supply. However, this knowledge barely finds implementation into practice despite the urgent global need to minimise carbon emissions and energy consumption. A major reason is that most concrete developments were historically made in the northern hemisphere, where today over-regulations and stagnating market perspectives slow down innovation drive towards higher sustainability. In most African countries, however, sustainable building is simply an urgent real-life problem. The demand for building is enormous, Standard solutions are not an option, and the pool of innovative local raw materials and concrete concepts is enormous. The paper provides a comprehensive comparison between the boundary frameworks of Europe and Africa, and it is explained why local African solutions shall be given priority over imported solutions. Examples of local African concrete solutions are given, and ideas for a rapid implementation are developed. Most of the potentially useful materials such as agricultural ashes, natural and calcined pozzolans, polysaccharides, etc. have not yet been subject to intensive research to date. Therefore, it is not unlikely to assume that with an open mind for non-Standard solutions, combined with creativity and particularly knowledge and awareness, the next generation of innovative and sustainable concretes will be developed and applied on the African continent. Therefore, the conclusion is that particularly the African continent provides the best starting position to develop better and more sustainable concrete solutions than anywhere else in the world. Hence, Africa can become a global pioneer in green cement and concrete technology with impact to the entire world. N2 - Posljednih desetljeća načinjen je golem napredak u temeljnim znanjima o cementu i betonu. Danas bi bilo moguće naći rješenja za optimalni održivi beton primjeren svakom danom okviru i dobavi sirovina. Međutim, takvo znanje jedva da se primjenjuje u praksi unatoč hitnoj globalnoj potrebi smanjenja na najmanju mjeru emisija ugljika i potrošnje energije. Glavni je razlog što je većina razvoja u području betona tijekom povijesti načinjena u sjevernoj hemisferi gdje danas preregulacija i perspektiva stagnirajućeg tržišta usporavaju inovacije ka većoj održivosti. Međutim, u većini afričkih zemalja održiva gradnja jednostavno je hitni problem svakodnevice. Zahtjevi za gradnjom su golemi, obična rješenja nisu opcija, rezerve inovativnih lokalnih sirovina i mogućnosti primjene betona su golemi. U radu se daje sveobuhvatna usporedba graničnih okosnica Europe i Afrike, a objašnjeno je zašto se lokalnim afričkim rješenjima mora dati prioritet pred uvezenim rješenjima. Većina potencijalno korisnih materijala kao što su pepeli iz poljoprivrede, prirodni i kalcinirani pucolani, polisaharidi itd. do danas nisu bili predmetom intenzivnih istraživanja. Stoga nije nevjerojatno pretpostaviti da će se Nova generacija inovativnih i održivih betona razviti i primijeniti na afričkom kontinentu uz otvorenost prema nestandardnim rješenjima i u kombinaciji s kreativnošću i posebno znanjem i sviješću. Stoga je zaključeno da naročito afrički kontinent osigurava najbolju početnu poziciju za razvoj boljih i održivijih betona nego bilo gdje u svijetu. Prema tome Afrika može postati svjetski pionir u tehnologiji zelenoga cementa i betona s utjecajem na cijeli svijet. T2 - 1st International Conference on Construction Materials for a Sustainable Future CY - Zadar, Croatia DA - 19.4.2017 KW - Africa KW - Sustainability KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Admixtures KW - Carbon emissions PY - 2017 SN - 978-953-8168-04-8 SP - 829 EP - 835 CY - Zagreb, Croatia AN - OPUS4-40977 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram T1 - Agricultureal Waste for High Performance Construction - Potentials for Innovation, Markets, and Sustainability N2 - The presentation provides an overview of potentials for high performance construction materials based on local agricultural waste materials in different regions in Africa. T2 - 5th German-African Infrastructure Forum 2017 CY - Düsseldorf, Germany DA - 08.11.2017 KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Bio-based materials KW - Sustainability KW - Africa PY - 2017 AN - OPUS4-43545 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Vasiliou, Eleni A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram A1 - Stefanidou, Maria A1 - Kühne, Hans-Carsten A1 - Rogge, Andreas ED - Amziane, Sofiane ED - Sonebi, Mohammed ED - Charlet, Karine T1 - Effectiveness of starch ethers as rheology modifying admixtures for cement based systems N2 - Polysaccharides are important rheology modifying admixtures in the building material sector. The use of starch is becoming increasingly important, due to many ecological and economic advantages. In the construction sector, starch ethers are being used as thickeners and as means to increase the yield stress. The starch ethers that are available on the market differ in their behaviour, which can vary greatly depending upon the binder system and mortar composition, e.g. solid volume content, binder type, additional admixtures. In view of the limited knowledge about the influence of molecular modifications associated with cement based systems, some fundamental rheological functional mechanisms were analysed in this study. The differently modified starch ethers used were derived from potatoes. They varied in their charges and degrees of hydroxypropylation. The setting and the flow behaviour of all examined variations of starch ethers were analysed in cement pastes. In order to illustrate the effects of the starch ethers that were used, the water-cement ratio (w/c) was held constant in all the mixtures [Schmidt 2012]. The results indicated significant differences in setting and flow behaviour. T2 - Second International RILEM Conference on Bio-based Building Materials CY - Clermont-Ferrand, France DA - 21.06.2017 KW - Rheology KW - Polysaccharides KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Starch KW - Polycarboxylate PY - 2017 SN - 978-2-35158-192-6 SP - 81 EP - 85 PB - RILEM S.A.R.L CY - Paris, France AN - OPUS4-43548 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram T1 - Potentials for the use of renewable and recyclable materials and how they can be incorporated in the supply stream N2 - Concrete is a major contributor to global energy demand and CO2-emissions, necessitating mitigation strategies. Utilising bio-based resources like polysaccharides, pozzolanic ashes from agricultural waste, and bio-based fibres and aggregates can reduce carbon footprints. However, implementation is hindered by standards favouring scarce and traditionally European materials like fly ash and slag. This highlights the need to diversify resource streams to benefit the global South's abundance of bio-based resources and arable land. An inclusive approach recognizing bio-based resources is required through innovation and regional adaptation. T2 - 11. Jahrestagung des DAfStb mit 63. Forschungskolloquium der BAM Green Intelligent Building CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 16.10.2024 KW - Renewable and recyclabe materials KW - Cement KW - Concrete KW - Climate KW - Carbon footprint KW - Bio-based resources KW - Bio-char PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-61801 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram A1 - Brouwers, H.J.H. A1 - Kühne, Hans-Carsten A1 - Meng, Birgit T1 - Interactions of polysaccharide stabilising agents with early cement hydration without and in the presence of superplasticizers N2 - Polysaccharides are incorporated into cement based Systems in order to modify the rheological properties. Typically, cellulose ethers, sphingan gums, guar gum or starch ethers are applied. Depending upon their chemistry, molecular architecture, and adsorption tendency, polysaccharides interact differently with the entire cementitious system. Some stabilising agents like diutan gum mainly affect the cementitious paste; other stabilising agents like starch tend to interact with the sand fraction and even with the coarse aggregates. Cellulose and guar gum shows more diverse performances. Typically stabilising admixtures like polysaccharides are used, when sophisticated rheological properties are adjusted. Therefore, polysaccharides are often used in combination with superplasticisers, which are added to reduce the yield stress of concrete. This can cause interactions, particularly when the stabilising Agent shows a strong tendency to adsorb on particle surfaces. Adsorptive stabilising agents may reduce the amount of adsorbed superplasticisers, thus affecting both viscosity and yield stress, while non-adsorptive stabilising agents mainly affect the plastic viscosity independently of the superplasticiser. Due to the strong influence of superplasticisers on the yield stress, influences of the stabilising agent on the yield stress retreat into the background, so that their major effect is an increase of the plastic viscosity. The paper provides a comprehensive overview of how different polysaccharide superplasticisers affect cementitious flowable systems and points out the challenges of the combined use of polysaccharides and superplasticisers. Based on rheometric experiments and observations of the hydration process, time dependent effects on the workability as well as of the hydration of cement are presented and discussed. KW - Concrete KW - Polysaccharides KW - Rheology KW - Stabilising agents KW - Starch KW - Sphingan PY - 2017 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2016.11.022 SN - 0950-0618 SN - 1879-0526 VL - 139 SP - 584 EP - 593 PB - Elsevier AN - OPUS4-40597 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram A1 - Olonade, K. A. A1 - Mbugua, R. N. A1 - Lenz, F. J. A1 - Tchetgnia Ngassam, I. T1 - Bio-Based Rheology Modifiers for High Performance Concrete – Possible Modes of Actions and Case Study for Cassava Starch in West Africa N2 - Polymers that help tailoring rheological properties during the casting process have become inevitable constituents for all kinds of high-performance concrete technologies. Due to lacking industries, these typically crude-oil based admixtures are not readily available in many parts of the world, which limits the implementation of more sustainable high-performance construction technologies in these regions. Alternative polymers, which often demand for less processing, can be derived from local plant-based resources. The paper provides experimental data of flow tests of cement pastes with polysaccharides from Triumfetta pendrata A. Rich, acacia gum and cassava without and in the presence of polycarboxylate ether superplasticizer. The flow tests are amended by observations of the zeta potentials and the hydrodynamic diameters in the presence of and without calcium ions in the dispersion medium. The results show that in the presence of and without calcium ions all polysaccharides provide negative zeta potentials, yet, they affect flowability and thixotropy in different ways. Cassava starch, acacia gum, and the gum of Triumfetta pendrata A. Rich qualified well for robustness improvement, strong stiffening, and additive manufacturing, respectively. The reason for the different effects can be found in their average sizes and size distribution. Due to the promising results, a flow chart for local value chains is derived on the example of yet unused cassava wastes, which can be converted in parallel. T2 - 3rd International Conference on the Application of Superabsorbent Polymers CY - Skukuza, South Africa KW - Admixtures KW - Polysaccharides KW - Rheology KW - Thixotropy KW - Concrete PY - 2020 SN - 978-3-030-33341-6 SN - 978-3-030-33342-3 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33342-3_17 SP - 158 EP - 166 PB - Springer AN - OPUS4-58404 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram A1 - Kühne, Hans-Carsten A1 - Leinitz, Sarah ED - Diouri, A. ED - Boukhari, A. ED - Ait Brahim, L. ED - Bahi, L. ED - N., Khachani ED - Saadi, M ED - Aride, J. ED - Nounah, A. T1 - Concrete casting robustness improvement due to active rheology N2 - With ongoing innovation in process technology, the challenges of concrete technology are more and more focused on the rheological optimisation for these processes, since improper mixture stability or poor compaction ability negatively affect the concrete homogeneity and quality. However, along with the increasing complexity of today’s concrete mixture compositions, concrete becomes more prone to failure regarding the casting process. Variable properties of the raw materials typically cause changing workability. The reasons can be found among others in scattering water contents, physical or chemical properties of the cement or varying environmental temperatures. Robustness in the delicately adjusted rheology, however, is of utmost importance for modern and future process technology, from sprayed concrete over pumpable concrete towards 3D-printing, with regard to the long-term strength, the function and the durability. Typically, material induced changes cannot be identified easily due to the complex interactions of concrete constituents. Therefore, a precise and prompt counteraction is impossible. However, it is known that the yield stress can be controlled by addition of supplementary superplasticizer or stabilising agent. In combination with computerized process observation tools that can rapidly interpret and react on changes in the rheology, it is therefore thinkable, that only these two admixture types can adjust the rheology steadily and permanently, regardless of the actual root cause for observed macroscopic rheology change. The presentation will firstly give a comprehensive overview of effects at the interface between pore solution, particles and hydrates, which affect the rheology of fresh concrete. Secondly, ways are recommended how the rheology can be actively manipulated before eventually computerized methods are demonstrated that help to actively and rapidly assess and counteract performance scatter during steady casting processes. T2 - 2nd International Congress on Materials & Structural Stability (CMSS-2017) CY - Rabat, Morocco DA - 22.11.2017 KW - Cusum KW - Rheology KW - Control Chart KW - Concrete KW - Robustness PY - 2018 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-444317 DO - https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201814901001 SN - 2261-236X VL - 149 SP - 01001-1 EP - 01001-7 PB - EDP Sciences CY - Les Ulis AN - OPUS4-44431 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmidt, Wolfram A1 - Tchetgnia Ngassam, I. L. A1 - Mbugua, R. A1 - Olonade, K. A. ED - Greim, M. ED - Kusterle, W. ED - Teubert, O. T1 - Natural rheology modifying admixtures for concrete N2 - The possibility to tailor the rheology of concrete eventually opened up the path to new technologies, where design criteria are no longer limited to the compressive strength. Thus, it can be concluded that the capability to control the rheology of concrete can be considered as catalyst for many of today’s concrete innovations. In the same way rheology modifying admixtures will be key to mastering the challenges of the next decades. In many regions of the Southern hemisphere, the effective use of chemical admixtures would significantly contribute to solve problems induced by the challenging climate, but particularly in Africa there is often a lack of local supply and supply infrastructure. In Africa, concrete admixtures are largely shipped or transported from outside the continent. The long distance transportation of chemicals is not very environmentally friendly and the economic consequences are dramatic: the agents are difficult to purchase, expensive, and there is no large variety of products available in the market. Due to the enormous relevance of rheology modifying admixtures, it is worthwhile to recollect that nature provides an enormous variety of chemicals that can be used readily or with low processing and without enormous transportation distances, since these plants are typically regionally abundantly available, cheap, and they are environmental friendly. The paper presents an overview of various options for rheology modifying admixtures, that can be found in Africa, and that may become a real alternative, once their interaction within the complex cementitious system is well understood. T2 - 26. Workshop und Kolloquium "Rheologische Messungen an Baustoffen" CY - Regensburg, Germany DA - 21.02.2017 KW - Concrete KW - Rheology PY - 2017 SN - 978-3-7439-0171-1 SP - 75 EP - 87 PB - tredition GmbH CY - Hamburg AN - OPUS4-40599 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kocherla, Amarteja A1 - Duddi, Murali A1 - Kolluru, Subramaniam T1 - Embedded PZT sensors for combined viboacoustic sensing of concrete structures N2 - Accurate assessment of damage in concrete structures requires monitoring techniques that can capture both global stiffness degradation and local cracking processes. Existing structural health monitoring approaches typically rely on separate sensors for vibration measurements and acoustic emission (AE) monitoring, while conventional surface-mounted devices often suffer from poor and variable coupling. This study presents an embedded piezoelectric (PZT) sensor developed for dual mode vibroacoustic monitoring in concrete structures. The sensor is cast within the concrete matrix to improve mechanical coupling and enable robust measurement of structural response during damage evolution. Dual-mode monitoring is achieved through sequential operation of the same embedded sensor in two distinct modes passive acoustic emission (AE) monitoring during fracture loading and impulse-excited vibration testing conducted before and after fracture test. Benchmarking experiments include comparison with commercial accelerometers and AE sensors, confirming that the embedded configuration enhances high-frequency sensitivity and coupling performance. The fracture process is interpreted by correlating AE activity with Digital Image Correlation (DIC)-based crack kinematics, enabling zone-wise understanding of crack development. The vibration response is interpreted using a stiffness-reduction framework consistent with hinge-type crack formation, explaining the observed modal-frequency reduction and in crease in damping. Electromechanical impedance measurements quantify sensor–matrix interaction, highlighting the role of epoxy-mediated impedance matching. Overall, the results demonstrate that the proposed embedded sensor provides a unified platform for validated AE-vibration sensing, offering a promising approach for integrated structural health monitoring of concrete infrastructure KW - Vibroacoustic sensor KW - Embedded PZT sensor KW - Crack dynamics KW - DIC KW - Concrete PY - 2026 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2026.120690 VL - 268 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Elsevier Ltd. CY - Amsterdam, Netherlands AN - OPUS4-65560 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Seifert, Lando T1 - Review: Steel‐Reinforced Concrete Str‐uctures: Assessment and Repair of Corrosion N2 - In 2019 CRC Press published the "Steel‐Reinforced Concrete Structures" as a paperback. This book does not vary in terms of content from the hardback publication of 2008. But it is first reviewed here in corrosion news. The book provides eight of nine chapters in which the author discusses technical aspects of assessment and repair of steel‐reinforced concrete structures. To sum up, this book is recommended for students and people involved with the assessment and repair of reinforced‐concrete structures, who want to get a quick introduction into the different aspects of the field. Readers also learn much about the economic interactions besides the topic. However, for experienced technicians and corrosion experts, this book may not be exact enough in both the electrochemical description of deterioration processes and the practical aspects of repair and control methods. Despite that, the discussions of the author are scientifically correct. KW - Concrete KW - Corrosion PY - 2020 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/maco.202070084 SN - 1521-4176 SN - 0947-5117 VL - 71 IS - 8 SP - 1408 EP - 1409 PB - WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA CY - Weinheim AN - OPUS4-51075 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -