Identification of inhomogeneous concrete cover by non-contact ultrasonic method

International audienceConcrete cover degradation is induced by aggressive agents in ambiance, chemicals, moisture, or temperature variations. Due to this degradation concrete becomes inhomogeneous and usually a thin surface layer appears with porosity and elastic modulus different than the properties of deeper sound concrete. Therefore the on-site nondestructive evaluation of concrete cover is important to monitor the integrity of concrete structures and prevent their irreversible damage. In this paper the methodology applied by the classical technique used for ground structure recovery called Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves (MASW) is used as the NDT tool to characterize the thickness and elastic modulus of concrete cover. The procedure consists in generation and reception of surface waves within the required frequency band, using the non-contact transducers which scan evaluated profiles. Then the phase velocity dispersion characteristic V(f) is extracted, and concrete cover is characterized using as the proposed velocity gradient. The dispersion characteristics are exploited by the inversion software in order to obtain the variation of shear wave velocity as a function of depth