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This article presents a unique method of installing a special type of embedded ultrasonic transducers inside a 36-m-long section of an old bridge in Germany. A small-scale load test was carried out by a 16 ton truck to study the temperature and load influence on the bridge, as well as the performance of the embedded transducers. Ultrasonic coda wave interferometry technique, which has high sensitivity in detecting subtle changes in a heterogeneous medium, was used for the data evaluation and interpretation. The separation of two main influence factors (load effect and temperature variation) is studied, and future applications of wave velocity variation rate Φ for structural health condition estimation are discussed. As a preliminary research stage, the installation method and the performance of the ultrasonic transducer are recognized. Load- and temperature-induced weak wave velocity variations are successfully detected with a high resolution of 10−4%. The feasibility of the whole system for long-term structural health monitoring is considered, and further research is planned.
Im Jahr 2011 hat der Bundestag in Deutschland den Ausstieg aus der Kernenergie beschlossen. Der angefallene Abfall wird mehr als hunderttausend Jahre eine derartig hohe Aktivität besitzen, dass er eine erhebliche Gefahr für nachfolgende Generationen darstellen kann. Dieser radioaktive Abfall soll in tiefen geologischen Formationen (z.B. Salz, Ton oder Kristallin) sicher endgelagert werden. Die Endlager werden mittels sogenannter geotechnischer Abdichtbauwerke (Schachtbzw. Streckenverschlüsse) verschlossen, wofür u.a. Zement- oder Sorel-basierte Baustoffe (Betone) in Frage kommen. Die Beschreibung des Dichtvermögens dieser Bauwerke ist unabdingbar. In der Forschungsphase werden verschiedene Werkstoffe untersucht und Methoden für die zerstörungsfreie Untersuchung der Bauwerke als Mittel der Qualitätsprüfung entwickelt. Hierbei ist der Nachweis der Rissfreiheit bzw. die Detektion möglicher Risse ein vorrangiges Thema. In den letzten Jahren konnten bereits umfangreiche Erfahrungen mit der Untersuchung von in-situ-Versuchsobjekten in Realmaßstab gesammelt werden. Die Messungen wurden im Endlager für radioaktive Abfälle Morsleben am in-situ-Versuch “Abdichtbauwerk im Steinsalz” und in der Grube Teutschenthal am Großversuch GV2 durchgeführt. Es ist gelungen mit einem neu entwickelten Ultraschall-Messsystem Eindringtiefen bis ca. 9,0 m zu realisieren. Die Messungen mit dem Large Aperture Ultrasonic System in Kombination mit der Rekonstruktion-Methode Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique zeigen, dass die zerstörungsfreie Prüfung von Abdichtbauwerken möglich und die Nutzung des Messsystems zur Qualitätssicherung bei der Erstellung der Verschlussbauwerke vielversprechend ist.
Muon Tomography of the Interior of a Reinforced Concrete Block: First Experimental Proof of Concept
(2021)
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.
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.
With a goal to improve our understanding of the relationships between microstructural features and ultrasonic signal behavior, concrete specimens of varying water-to-cement ratio were imaged using X-ray computed tomography (CT), and subsequently subjected to ultrasonic testing. From the CT scans, measurements were made of cement paste density and number of interfaces. Ultrasonic signals produced using a through-transmission configuration were analyzed and fit to a diffusion model to separate absorption from scattering attenuation. The results showed that at the frequencies tested, ultrasonic dissipation rate correlated weakly with paste density, while diffusivity correlated well with number of interfaces, but only if entrained air is considered separately. Cement paste density was found to be very well predicted by diffusivity, leading to a clear power-law relationship between diffusivity and compressive strength.
This paper describes a new ultrasonic measuring device called “W-Box”. It was developed based on the requirements of the DFG Forschergruppe (research unit) CoDA for a portable device for monitoring of concrete specimens, models and actual structures using embedded ultrasonic transducers as well as temperature and humidity sensors. The W-Box can send ultrasonic pulses with a variable frequency of 50–100 kHz to one selectable transducer and records signals from up to 75 multiplexed channels with a sample rate of 1 MHz and a resolution of 14 bits. In addition, it measures temperature and humidity with high accuracy, adjustable amplification, restarts automatically after a power failure and can be fully controlled remotely. The measured data are automatically stored locally on-site data quality checks and transferred to remote servers. The comparison of the W-Box with a laboratory setup using commercial devices proves that it is equally reliable and precise, at much lower cost. The W-Box also shows that their measurement capacities, with the used embedded ultrasonic transducers, can reach above 6 m in concrete.
In the framework of non-destructive-testing advanced seismic imaging techniques have been applied to ultrasonic echo data in order to examine the integrity of an engineered test-barrier designed to be used for sealing an underground nuclear waste disposal site. Synthetic data as well as real multi-receiver ultrasonic data acquired at the test site were processed and imaged using Kirchhoff prestack depth migration reverse time migration (RTM). In general, both methods provide a good Image quality as demonstrated by various case studies, however deeper parts within the test barrier containing inclined reflectors were reconstructed more accurately by RTM. In particular, the image quality of a specific target reflector at a depth of 8 m in the test-barrier has been significantly improved compared to previous investigations using synthetic aperture Focusing technique, which justifies the considerable computing time of this method.