Numerical Parametric Study of Coda Wave Interferometry Sensitivity to Microcrack Change in a Multiple Scattering Medium

Abstract

The expansion of cracks in 3D printing concrete materials may lead to structural failure, so it is essential to monitor crack propagation development. Coda wave interferometry (CWI) has been proven to be sensitive to microcracks, however, the evolution pattern of ultrasonic coda waves during crack growth is still not clear. This paper reports a numerical study of the sensitivity and feasibility of CWI for monitoring microcrack growth in heterogeneous materials. A two-phase concrete model, which contains microcracks with different angles and lengths, was developed using the finite element analysis software ABAQUS. The relative velocity change (Δv/v) and the decorrelation coefficient (Kd) at different crack increments were quantitatively analyzed. The numerical simulation results show that coda waves are sensitive to microcrack length as well as the crack angle. The Δv/v increases linearly with the increase of the length of a single microcrack, and the Kd could be linked to the crack length quadratically. Furthermore, a quantitative functional relationship between the CWI observations (Kd, Δv/v) and the angle of the crack to the source/receiver and the relative length growth of the crack are established. In addition, the nonlinear relationship between slope and angle can be fitted with a sinusoidal function. The reported results quantitatively assess the coda wave variation pattern during crack propagation, which is important for the promotion and application of CWI technology.

Combinatorial Quantification of Multi-Features of Coda Waves in Temperature-Affected Concrete Beams

“…A coda wave is a superposition of scattered waves from different propagation paths [9], as shown in Figure 1. Changes in the properties of the medium can cause changes in the state of micro-cracks in concrete, thereby causing changes in the propagation path [28,29]. On the different paths, the absorption attenuation and scattering attenuation of ultrasonic waves are different, so the superimposed coda waves show changes in the initial wave speed, the wave speed at each moment, and the amplitude [9,15], as shown in Figure 1.…”