Rapid and Quantitative Non-Destructive Evaluation(NDE) of Concrete Corrosion in Urban Bridges
| YEAR | Faculty Mentor | Teacher Participants |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Dr. Nur Yazdani, PE | 1. Christopher Meek 2. Honey Waddle |
The leading cause of concrete structure deterioration is the corrosion of embedded steel rebars, especially in aggressive environments, resulting in strength, serviceability and useful life reduction. Qualitative methods such as visual inspection is very limited in determining the in-service extent of such damages hidden within the structure. Destructive techniques such as coring may damage the concrete cover over rebars and can only provide local estimates of the corrosion extent and may accelerate future corrosion. Previously, six qualitative NDE methods were reviewed for rebar corrosion. Also, experimental research was conducted to quantify the degree of corrosion using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR).
However, the NDE was not effective in reliably quantify the corrosion condition in concrete members. We designed this 3-year project at UTA, funded by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), to plug this knowledge gap on the application of NDE to evaluate rebar corrosion in concrete, with the following parameters: concrete type, rebar size, concrete cover and corrosion time. The two tracks in Project 1 involve different equipment, working principles, scanning techniques, data collection and analysis. GPR uses radar reflective waves while iCOR uses electrical response.