Modified one-sided stress wave velocity measurement technique for concrete NDT & E

Abstract

A modified one-sided measurement technique is proposed for Rayleigh wave (R-wave) velocity measurement in concrete. The scattering from heterogeneity may affect the waveforms of R-waves in concrete, which may make the R-waves dispersive. Conventional one-sided techniques do not consider the scattering dispersion of R-waves in concrete. In this study, the maximum energy arrival concept is adopted to determine the wave velocity by employing its continuous wavelet transform. Experimental study was performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. The present method is applied to monitor the strength development of early-age concrete. A series of experiments were performed on early-age concrete specimens with various curing conditions. Results reveal that the proposed method can be effectively used to measure the R-wave velocity in concrete structures and to monitor the strength development of early-age concrete.