Structural Health Monitoring Using non Destructive Testing of Concrete

Abstract

Structures are assemblies of load carrying members capable of safely transferring the superimposed loads to the foundations. Their main and most looked after property is the strength of the material that they are made of. Concrete, as we all know, is an integral material used for construction purposes. Thus, strength of concrete used, is required to be ‘known’ before starting with any kind of analysis. In the recent past, various methods and techniques, called as Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) techniques, are being used for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM).

The concept of nondestructive testing (NDT) is to obtain material properties of in place specimens without the destruction of the specimen nor the structure from which it is taken. However, one problem that has been prevalent within the concrete industry for years is that the true properties of an in-place specimen have never been tested without leaving a certain degree of damage on the structure. For most cast-in-place concrete structures, construction specifications require that test cylinders be cast for 28-day strength determination. Usually, representative test specimens are cast from the same concrete mix as the larger structural elements. Unfortunately, test specimens are not an exact representation of in-situ concrete, and may be affected by variations in specimen type, size, and curing procedures.