Embedded Smart Antenna for Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation (NDT&E) of Moisture Content and Deterioration in Concrete

Abstract

Concrete failure will lead to serious safety concerns in the performance of a building structure. It is one of the biggest challenges for engineers to inspect and maintain the quality of concrete throughout the service years in order to prevent structural deterioration. To date, a lot of research is ongoing to develop different instruments to inspect concrete quality. Detection of moisture ingress is important in the structural monitoring of concrete. This paper presents a novel sensing technique using a smart antenna for the non-destructive evaluation of moisture content and deterioration inspection in concrete blocks. Two different standard concrete samples (United Kingdom and Malaysia) were investigated in this research. An electromagnetic (EM) sensor was designed and embedded inside the concrete to detect the moisture content within the structure. In addition, CST microwave studio was used to validate the theoretical model of the EM sensor against the test data. The results demonstrated that the EM sensor at 2.45 GHz is capable of detecting the moisture content in the concrete with linear regression of R2 = 0.9752. Furthermore, identification of different mix ratios of concrete were successfully demonstrated in this paper. In conclusion, the EM sensor is capable of detecting moisture content non-destructively and could be a potential technique for maintenance and quality control of the building performance.

Combination of the Photogrammetric and Microwave Remote Sensing for Cultural Heritage Documentation and Preservation – Preliminary Results

“…Moisture content is one of the elements, which requires continuous monitoring as structures undergoes rapid deterioration when exposed to aggressive environments and unpredictable weather changes. The electromagnetic sensor for monitoring the excess of the moisture content has been successfully demonstrated as a contactless technique (Kot et al, 2017(Kot et al, , 2016 as well as embedded system for long term monitoring (Teng et al, 2019). In addition, other common structural defects were investigated such as crack development within concrete beams .…”

Assessment of heavy metal pollution in the Great Al-Mussaib irrigation channel

“…For instance, electrocoagulation treatment method (EC) could be used to treat these types of wastewaters due to its high efficiency in the removal of heavy metals [18,60], and it produces small quantity of sludge (solid waste), the latter requires complicated and expensive handling and treatment processes [61,62]. Additionally, due to the recent development in the sensing technology [63,64], smart monitoring stations could be used to monitor and control the concentration of heavy metals in the discharged wastewater to GMC. Table 6: Concentrations of some heavy metals (mg/kg) in the sediments of different rivers in Iraq.…”

The Quality Assessment of Different Geolocalisation Methods for a Sensor System to Monitor Structural Health of Monumental Objects

“…Structural health monitoring (SHM) for historical and architectural heritage should concern such objectives as [9]: Electromagnetic spectroscopy offers non-destructive [10] or embedded solutions [11,12] for structural health monitoring. The electromagnetic sensor, which is the focus of this work, has been used for monitoring of the excess moisture content and waterproof membrane defects [13,14] of concrete structures.…”