Evaluation of fracture process in concrete by means of acoustic approaches

Through the life cycle of civil infrastructures, quality assessments shall be implemented when construction, in-service, before/ after repair and so forth; however, there are no decisive techniques to evaluate inside of structures non-destructively. The authors have developed an advanced measurement method using tomographic approaches. With these advanced technologies, internal damage or defects can be visualized as a distribution of elastic wave parameters such as velocities so that damage identification consisting of locations and damage degree would be possible. In the paper, fracture processes of concrete decks are visualized by the acoustic approaches. Specifically, RC slabs with/ without water supply subject to wheel loads are cyclically damaged with monitoring acoustic approaches. As a result, depending on the water condition, different pattern of fracture progress can be confirmed.