Evaluation of Ultrasonic Techniques on Concrete Structures

Clayton, Dwight A; Smith, Cyrus M; Ferraro, Christopher C.; Nelson, J. M.; Khazanovich, Lev; Hoegh, Kyle; Chintakunta, Satish; Popovics, John S.

doi:10.2172/1095161

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Although significant NDE research has been conducted on relatively thin concrete structures to assess pavement, bridge decks, and other infrastructure applications, construction of large reinforced concrete specimens specifically for NDE comparisons is less common. 4 Comparative studies have shown various NDE techniques to be successful in identifying the types of internal characteristics of interest. However, these applications are typically conducted to evaluate thin specimens (~1 ft. in thickness), while NPP containment walls are often much thicker (over 3 ft. in thickness).…”

Section: Thick Specimen Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving synthetic aperture focusing technique for thick concrete specimens via frequency banding

Clayton

2016

SPIE Proceedings

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A multitude of concrete-based structures are typically part of a light water reactor (LWR) plant to provide the foundation, support, shielding, and containment functions. This use has made its long-term performance crucial for the safe operation of commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs). Extending reactor life to 60 years and beyond will likely increase susceptibility and severity of known forms of degradation. While standard Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (SAFT) is adequate for many defects with shallow concrete cover, some defects located under deep concrete cover are not easily identified using the standard SAFT. For many defects, particularly defects under deep cover, the use of frequency banded SAFT improves the detectability over standard SAFT. In addition to the improved detectability, the frequency banded SAFT also provides improved scan depth resolution that can be important in determining the suitability of a particular structure to perform its designed safety function. Specially designed and fabricated test specimens can provide realistic flaws that are similar to actual flaws in terms of how they interact with a particular NDE technique. Because conditions in the laboratory are controlled, the number of unknown variables can be decreased, making it possible to focus on specific aspects, investigate them in detail, and gain further information on the capabilities and limitations of each method. To validate the advantages of frequency banded SAFT on thick concrete, a 2.134 m x 2.134 m x 1.016 m concrete test specimen with twenty deliberately embedded defects was fabricated.

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Section: Thick Specimen Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving synthetic aperture focusing technique for thick concrete specimens via frequency banding

Clayton

2016

SPIE Proceedings

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“…The wedges included in this study were a 1.5 mm thick steel sheet (CR1) and 3 mm thick polycarbonate sheet (CR2). These defects were fabricated by Hiltunen et al [43] and tested on the front (uncracked) side by the authors as part of a study by Clayton et al [17]. Fig.…”

Section: Flaw Detectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dry-point contact (DPC) low-frequency ( $ 50 kHz) shear wave ultrasonic transducers have been shown to mitigate issues with signal variability and sensor positional shift instability [11][12][13]. Various versions of self-contained DPC pulse-echo arrangements of these transducers have been successfully used for characterization of civil engineering materials [14][15][16][17][18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extended synthetic aperture focusing technique for ultrasonic imaging of concrete

Hoegh

Khazanovich

2015

NDT & E International

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a b s t r a c tQuantitative nondestructive characterization of defects and inclusions in portland cement concrete structures are realized in this paper via extended reconstructions for linear array ultrasound systems. This is accomplished through generalization of traditional Kirchhoff-based synthetic aperture focusing technique migration to mitigate the effects of limited aperture and handle multiple scans as a single virtual array with increased effective aperture. Pearson's correlation is utilized to account for uncertainty in relative position of individual measurement and mitigate the need for robotic precision when placing adjacent scans. The robustness of the method is demonstrated on artificially generated data as well as insitu measurements for assessment of internal portland cement concrete characteristics such as inclusions and cracks.

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“…In addition to the visual inspection techniques discussed here, other automated or semi-automated systems for the detection and localization of cracks in RC components have been studied. These include ground penetrating radar, 6 ultrasonic methods, 7,8 x-ray tomography 9 and acoustic emission-based 9,10 testing methods. These NDE methods, while are well established and understood, can be difficult to deploy for the continuous monitoring of structures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crack detection in RC structural components using a collaborative data fusion approach based on smart concrete and large-area sensors

Downey

D’Alessandro

Ubertini

et al. 2018

Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2018

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Recent advances in the fields of nanocomposite technologies have enabled the development of highly scalable, low-cost sensing solution for civil infrastructures. This includes two sensing technologies, recently proposed by the authors, engineered for their high scalability, low-cost and mechanical simplicity. The first sensor consists of a smart-cementitious material doped with multi-wall carbon nanotubes, which has been demonstrated to be suitable for monitoring its own deformations (strain) and damage state (cracks). Integrated to a structure, this smart cementitious material can be used for detecting damage or strain through the monitoring of its electrical properties. The second sensing technology consists of a sensing skin developed from a flexible capacitor that is mounted externally onto the structure. When deployed in a dense sensor network configuration, these large area sensors are capable of covering large surfaces at low cost and can monitor both strain-and crack-induced damages. This work first presents a comparison of the capabilities of both technologies for crack detection in a concrete plate, followed by a fusion of sensor data for increased damage detection performance. Experimental results are conducted on a 50 50 5 cm3 plate fabricated with smart concrete and equipped with a dense sensor network of 20 large area sensors. Results show that both novel technologies are capable of increased damage localization when used concurrently.

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Evaluation of Ultrasonic Techniques on Concrete Structures

Cited by 12 publications

References 13 publications

Improving synthetic aperture focusing technique for thick concrete specimens via frequency banding

Improving synthetic aperture focusing technique for thick concrete specimens via frequency banding

Extended synthetic aperture focusing technique for ultrasonic imaging of concrete

Crack detection in RC structural components using a collaborative data fusion approach based on smart concrete and large-area sensors

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