Article
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Ultrasonic Pulse Echo Signals for Detection and Advanced Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Anomalies
Version 1
: Received: 24 March 2024 / Approved: 25 March 2024 / Online: 25 March 2024 (08:53:50 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Zatar, W.; Chen, G.; Nghiem, H.; Xiao, F. Ultrasonic Pulse-Echo Signals for Quantitative Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Anomalies. Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 4860. Zatar, W.; Chen, G.; Nghiem, H.; Xiao, F. Ultrasonic Pulse-Echo Signals for Quantitative Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Anomalies. Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 4860.
Abstract
This paper presents a study to accurately evaluate defects in reinforced concrete decks using ultrasonic pulse-echo signals. Two validation specimens were designed and tested where reinforced concrete deck slab specimens included planned voids and defects. A commercial Ultrasonic Pulse-Echo (UPE) device obtains 2-D images of the void/defect locations of the reinforced concrete deck. The UPE is based on the ultrasonic shear-wave test method using dry-point-contact transmitting and receiving transducers and employing a synthetic aperture focusing technique. The authors analyzed the recorded UPE A-scan data to enhance the accuracy of estimating the defects' locations using the synthetic aperture focusing technique imaging method. The analysis benefitted from an advanced denoising approach and defect echo peak extraction based on empirical modal decomposition, Hurst exponent characterization, and Hilbert envelope estimation. While output from conventional UPC devices can only provide qualitative results, the new method provides quantitative information on the anomalies inside the reinforced concrete deck. The developed approach accurately assists with assessing the location and depth of the voids/defects in the reinforced concrete deck slabs.
Keywords
Nondestructive testing (NDT); Ultrasonic Pulse-Echo (UPE); synthetic aperture focusing technique; Mira; Reinforced concrete deck; Anomalies; Void defect; Denoise; EMD; Hurst exponent; Hilbert transfor
Subject
Engineering, Civil Engineering
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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