In modern society, architectural and civil engineering structures such as reinforced concrete buildings require high seismic performance to minimize the ‘megarisk’ exposed from urban earthquake hazards. In the reinforced concrete structures, the bond resistance between rebar and concrete is one important parameter for discussing its performance and it has been typically evaluated by measuring the strain distribution along the embedded rebar. Here, we present in-situ strain and stress measurements for the rebar in reinforced concrete using time-of-flight neutron diffraction as a novel alternative technique to typical strain gauges. It was demonstrated in this study that the three-dimensional deformation behavior of the embedded rebar in normal-strength concrete, cured in air, can be accurately measured under pull-out loading using time-of-flight neutron diffraction. Wider applications of neutron diffraction in the structural engineering field are expected for advanced understanding of actual phenomena on reinforced concrete structures.

The bond resistance between reinforcing bar (rebar) and concrete is one important parameter for examining integrity of the reinforced concrete structure, and is commonly evaluated by measuring the strain distribution along the rebar embedded in concrete. Here we present two types of applications of the time-of-flight neutron diffraction technique to measure the stress distribution of the rebar. It was demonstrated that bond deterioration around cracks developed in concrete can be evaluated by measuring the stress distribution along the embedded rebar using neutron diffraction. Furthermore, a change in the stress distribution along the rebar due to bond deterioration by corrosion was observed. The neutron diffraction technique is expected to become a novel method for measuring the stress (strain) of the rebar embedded in concrete, and will eventually provide insight into the actual phenomena on the reinforced concrete structures.