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Attenuation of ultrasonic signals in concrete has the potential to carry much information about the microstructure of the material. In this work a series of concrete specimens of varying porosities and pore size distributions were internally imaged with x-ray computed tomography (CT), and then subsequently examined with throughtransmission ultrasound. The CT images were used to quantify both capillary porosity of cement paste as well as internal interfaces that are likely to produce elastic wave scattering. Ultrasound signals were represented as a diffusion process such that absorption and scattering attenuation could be isolated. As implemented, the diffusion model was a poor predictor of capillary porosity, while diffusivity was a reasonable predictor of scattering interfaces. Diffusivity was found to scale extremely well with small scale porosity, which made it a good predictor of compressive strength.
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.
Muon tomography applied to assessment of concrete structures: First experiments and simulations.
(2022)
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.
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.
New possibilities for concrete analysis 4.0 with the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS)
(2020)
In civil engineering the damage assessment of concrete infrastructures is an important task to monitor and ensure the estimated life-time. The aging of concrete is caused by different damage processes like the chloride induced pitting corrosion of the reinforcement. The penetration depth and the concentration of harmful species are crucial factors in the damage assessment. As a highly cost and time-consuming standard procedure, the analysis of concrete drill cores or drilling by wet-chemistry is widely used. This method provides element concentration to the total mass as aggregates and binder are homogenized. In order to provide a method that is capable to detect the element concentration regarding the cement content only, the laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) will be presented. The LIBS method uses a focused pulsed laser on the sample surface to ablate material. The high-power density and the laser-material interaction causes a laser-induced plasma that emits elemental and molecular line emission due to energy transition of the excited species in the plasma during the cooling phase.
As each element provides element-specific line emission, it is in principle possible to detect any element on the periodic table (spectroscopic fingerprint) with one laser shot. In combination with a translation stage the sample under investigation can be spatially resolved using a scan raster with a resolution up to 100 µm (element mapping). Due to the high spatial resolution, the element distribution and the heterogeneity of the concrete can be evaluated. By using chemometrics the non-relevant aggregates can be excluded from the data set and the element concentration can be quantified and referred to a specific solid phase like the binding matrix (cement) only. In order to analyze transport processes like diffusion and migration the twodimensional element distributions can provide deep insight into the transport through the pore space and local enrichments of elements. As LIBS is a multi-elemental method it is also possible to compare the ingress and transport process of different elements like Cl, Na, K, S, C, and Li simultaneously and evaluate cross-correlations between the different ions. Furthermore, the element mapping allows to visualize the transport along cracks. This work will show the state of the art in terms of hardware and software for an automated LIBS system as well as different application for a concrete analysis 4.0. Focus will be the application of LIBS for a fast concrete analysis.
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.
Advanced ultrasonic imaging for concrete: Alternative imaging conditions for reverse time migration
(2018)
Ultrasound echo is a widely used NDT technique for determining the internal geometry of structures. Reverse-time migration (RTM) has been recently introduced to NDT applications, as an imaging method for ultrasound data, to overcome some of the limitations (e.g. imaging steeply dipping reflector) experienced by the Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (SAFT), the most commonly used imaging algorithm for these measurements.
The standard implementation of RTM also experiences some drawbacks caused by its imaging condition, which is based on the zero-lag of the cross-correlation between source and receiver wavefields and generates high-amplitude low-frequency artifacts. Three alternative imaging conditions, developed for seismic data applications, were tested for their ability to provide better images than the standard cross-correlation: illumination compensation, deconvolution and wavefield decomposition. A polyamide specimen was chosen for the simulation of a synthetic experiment and for real data acquisition. The migrations of both synthetic and real data were performed with the software Madagascar. The illumination imaging condition was able to reduce the low-frequency noise and had a good performance in terms of computing time. The deconvolution improved the resolution in the synthetic tests, but did not showed such benefit for the real experiments. Finally, as for the wavefield decomposition, although it presented some advantages in terms of attenuating the low-frequency noise and some unwanted reflections, it was not able to image the internal structure of the polyamide as well as the cross-correlation did. Suggestions on how to improve the cost-effectiveness of the implementation of the deconvolution and wavefield decomposition were presented, as well as possible investigations that could be carried out in the future, in order to obtain better results with those two imaging conditions.
"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."