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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.
Processing ultrasonic data by coda wave interferometry to monitor load tests of concrete beams
(2018)
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.
Before the final disposal of radioactive wastes, various processes can be implemented to optimise the waste form. This can include different chemical and physical treatments, such as thermal treatment for waste reduction, waste conditioning for homogenisation and waste immobilisation for stabilisation prior to packaging and interim storage. Ensuring the durability and safety of the waste matrices and packages through performance and condition assessment is important for waste owners, waste management organisations, regulators and wider stakeholder communities. Technical achievements and lessons learned from the THERAMIN and PREDIS projects focused on low- and intermediate-level waste handling is shared here. The recently completed project on Thermal Treatment for Radioactive Waste Minimization and Hazard Reduction (THERAMIN) made advances in demonstrating the feasibility of different thermal treatment techniques to reduce volume and immobilise different streams of radioactive waste (LILW) prior to disposal. The Pre-Disposal Management of Radioactive Waste (PREDIS) project addresses innovations in the treatment of metallic materials, liquid organic waste and solid organic waste, which can result from nuclear power plant operation, decommissioning and other industrial processes. The project also addresses digitalisation solutions for improved safety and efficiency in handling and assessing cemented-waste packages in extended interim surface storage.
A new type of ultrasonic borehole probe is currently under development for the quality assurance of sealing structures in radioactive waste repositories using existing research boreholes. The goal is to examine the sealing structures made of salt concrete for possible cracks, delamination, and embedded objects. Earlier prototype probes use 12 or 16 individual dry point contact (DPC) horizontal shear wave transducers grouped into a transmitter and a receiver array, each made up of six or eight individual transducers. They are operated with a commercially available portable ultrasonic flaw detector used in the civil engineering industry. To increase the generated sound pressure of the borehole probe, the number of transducers in the novel probe is increased to 32. In addition, timed excitation of each probe is used to direct a focused sound beam to a specific angle and distance based on calculated time delays. Hence, the sensitive test volume is limited, and the signal-to-noise ratio of the received signals is improved. This paper presents the validation of the newly developed phased array borehole probe by beam computation in CIVA software and experimental investigations on a semi-cylindrical test specimen to investigate the directional characteristics. In combination with geophysical reconstruction techniques, an optimised radiation pattern of the probe is expected to improve the signal quality and thus increase the reliability of the imaging results.
This is of great importance for the construction of safe sealing structures needed for the disposal of radioactive or toxic waste.
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.
Concrete structures are invaluable assets to a society and managing them efficiently and effectively can be supported by information gathered through structural health monitoring (SHM). In this paper, a combined approach based on passive, i.e., acoustic emission (AE), and active, i.e., ultrasonic stress wave (USW) monitoring techniques for application to concrete structures is proposed and evaluated. While AE and USW are based on the same underlying physics, i.e., wave motion in solids, they differ fundamentally with respect to the nature of the source. For the former, external stimuli such as mechanical loads or temperature cause the rapid release of energy from initially unknown locations. As a result, AE events are unique and cannot be repeated. For the latter, a known source at a known location is employed at a specified time. This approach is thus controlled and repeatable. It is
argued that a combination of these two techniques has the potential to provide a more comprehensive picture of ongoing fracture processes, damage progression, as well as slowly occurring aging and degradation mechanisms.
This combined approach does thus promise new opportunities to support condition assessment of concrete structures. After providing an overview and comparison of the two techniques, results, and observations from a full-scale laboratory experiment and an in-service bridge monitoring study are discussed to demonstrate the promise of the proposed combined monitoring approach. Finally, suggestions for further work are presented.
Informationen zu in Betonbauteilen stattfindenden Umlagerungsprozessen sowie Druckspannungsverteilungen können mit konventioneller Messtechnik bislang nicht zweifelsfrei beantwortet werden. Ultraschallmessungen mit eingebetteten Sensoren könnten hier eine sinnvolle Ergänzung zur konventionellen Messtechnik sein. Durch Einsatz der Codawelleninterferometrie (CWI) sind hiermit schon sehr kleine Änderungen im Material detektierbar.
Um diese neue Methodik zu evaluieren, wurde das Forschungsprojekt „Querkrafttragfähigkeit von Spannbetonbrücken – Erfassung von Spannungszuständen in den Spannbetonversuchsträgern mit Ultraschallsensoren“ durch die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt) initiiert. In diesem Projekt wurden durch die Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und –prüfung (BAM) Ultraschall-Transducer in mehrere Spannbetonträger des Instituts für Massivbau der RWTH Aachen eingebettet, die anschließend bis zum Bruch belastet wurden.
Der Belastungsversuch an einem der Spannbetondurchlaufträger zeigte das große Potential dieser Methodik. Die im Netzwerk erfassten Änderungen der Ultraschallwellengeschwindigkeit geben die Spannungsverhältnisse im Längsschnitt des Trägers schon bei sehr niedrigen Belastungen qualitativ richtig wieder und zeigen bei hohen Belastungen eine gute Korrelation zum Rissbild. Dabei weisen räumliche Anomalien und Änderungen in der Charakteristik der Geschwindigkeitsänderungen oft schon auf Rissbildung hin, wenn diese noch nicht an der Oberfläche sichtbar ist. Dies zeigt das Potential im Hinblick auf eine Frühwarnung. Hierfür und ebenso in Bezug auf eine Quantifizierung der Effekte ist aber noch Entwicklungsarbeit notwendig. Ein Vorteil der Methodik ist, dass die Transducer nicht direkt am Ort der Änderung platziert werden müssen und einen relativ großen Bereich um die Transducer herum erfassen.