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In civil engineering, the corrosion of steel reinforcements in structural elements of concrete bares a risk of
stability-reduction, mainly caused by the exposure to chlorides. 3D computed tomography (CT) reveals the inner
structure of concrete and allows one to investigate the corrosion with non-destructive testing methods. To carry
out such investigations, specimens with a large artificial crack and an embedded steel rebar have been
manufactured. 3D CT images of those specimens were acquired in the original state. Subsequently three cycles
of electrochemical pre-damaging together with CT imaging were applied. These time series have been evaluated
by means of image processing algorithms to segment and quantify the corrosion products. Visualization of the
results supports the understanding of how corrosion propagates into cracks and pores. Furthermore, pitting of
structural elements can be seen without dismantling. In this work, several image processing and visualization
techniques are presented that have turned out to be particularly effective for the visualization and segmentation
of corrosion products. Their combination to a workflow for corrosion analysis is the main contribution of this
work.
Automated 3D Crack Detection for Analyzing Damage Processes in Concrete with Computed Tomography
(2012)
Concrete plays a central role as the standard building material in civil engineering. Experimental characterization of the concrete
microstructure and a description of failure mechanisms are important to understand the concrete’s mechanical properties. Computed tomography is a powerful source of information as it yields 3d images of concrete specimens. However, complete visual
inspection is often infeasible due to very large image sizes. Hence, automatic methods for crack detection and segmentation are
needed. A region-growing algorithm and a 3d U-Net showed promising results in a previous study. Cracks in normal concrete
and high-performance concrete that were initiated via tensile tests were investigated. Here, the methods are validated on a more
diverse set of concrete types and crack characteristics. Adequate adaptions of the methods are necessary to deal with the complex
crack structures. The segmentation results are assessed qualitatively and compared to those of a template matching algorithm
which is well-established in industry.