Chemie und Prozesstechnik
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- 2022 (2) (entfernen)
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- Civil engineering (2) (entfernen)
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The majority of ultrasonic devices used for non-destructive testing in civil engineering require contact with the surface of the concrete (specimen), which significantly increases the time required for the measurement. This makes it impractical for extensive investigation of large-scale structures such as bridge decks, foundations, or tunnels.
In a pioneering approach, fluidic oscillators are used as contact free ultrasonic sources to overcome the aforementioned limitations. These robust and cost-effective actuators require only pressurised air and are ideally suited for harsh environments. At a constant supply pressure, they generate a continuous mono-frequent actuation signal. Further, varying the supply pressure via a fast pressure regulator was found to generate a frequency modulated signal which enabled time-of-flight measurement with an added advantage of increased signal to noise ratio. To demonstrate the feasibility of this novel idea of non-contact ultrasound, the results of the initial tests are presented.
Corrosion of concrete reinforcement is one of the major damage mechanisms affecting both the load-bearing capacity and the serviceability of re-inforced concrete structures significantly. When externally discernible damages are observed during visual inspections on the structure, the extent of the damage inside the concrete is often already significant. Corrosion caused by carbonation often leads to severe discoloration of the surface or even large-area spalling of the concrete cover. In contrast, chloride-induced corrosion is usually difficult to observe visually but can cause much more serious damage in less time. The effect occurs locally and can lead to weakening of the cross-section of the reinforce-ment. This, in turn, can cause sudden structural collapses without prior notice.
In the meanwhile, various non-destructive and minimally invasive testing methods are available to evaluate the resistance to penetration of corrosion-pro-moting pollutants and to detect active corrosion. In this paper, a bridge crossing the river Regen is used as a case-study to demonstrate how the information ob-tained applying different testing methods can be combined and evaluated in the context of structural reassessments. Both the results of the permeability testing and the electrical resistance measurement are considered, as well as active corro-sion areas are localized using the half-cell potential mapping combined with the concrete cover measurement with the eddy current method and ground penetrat-ing radar. The results are evaluated using drill cores and in addition laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy was applied to obtain information about possible chlo-ride ion transport into the concrete.