A reinforced concrete bridge deck is often at risk of many forms of deterioration which affect its service life and maintenance cost. Nondestructive test (NDT) methods have seen increasing use by departments of transportation to locate deterioration in bridge decks before their condition rating becomes critically low and to help plan bridge deck preservation activities. Nonetheless, uncertainty in what forms of bridge deck deterioration each NDT method can identify has posed challenges in best deploying NDT methods for deck condition assessments. Thus, in this study, a full-scale 18 ft by 31 ft reinforced concrete bridge was constructed with defects in the deck simulating reinforcing steel corrosion, delaminations, concrete deterioration, voids, and poorly constructed concrete. The deck was evaluated with ground-penetrating radar, infrared thermography, and impact-echo nondestructive technologies to evaluate their potential for defect detection. Receiver operator characteristic analysis was implemented to quantify the capability of a given NDT method to detect a particular defect. Conclusions concerning which forms of concrete bridge deck deterioration each NDT method can detect were developed. It was found that of the three NDT methods considered, impact-echo testing was the most effective to evaluate the condition of bridge decks. Impact echo was able to detect both shallow and deep delaminations as thin as 0.01 in., shallow corrosion-induced delaminations, concrete deterioration, and some of the shallow voids; however, it was unable to detect deep voids, poorly constructed concrete, and mildly deteriorated concrete.


    Access

    Download

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Investigation of Ground-Penetrating Radar, Impact Echo, and Infrared Thermography Methods to Detect Defects in Concrete Bridge Decks


    Additional title:

    Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2022-06-06




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Clustering-Based Threshold Model for Condition Assessment of Concrete Bridge Decks with Ground-Penetrating Radar

    Dinh, Kien / Zayed, Tarek / Moufti, Sami et al. | Transportation Research Record | 2019



    Infrared thermography and ground penetrating radar for airport pavements assessment

    Moropoulou, A. / Avdelidis, N.P. / Koui, N.P. et al. | Tema Archive | 2002


    Sonic Methods to Detect Delamination in Concrete Bridge Decks

    Azari, Hoda / Yuan, Deren / Nazarian, Soheil et al. | Transportation Research Record | 2012


    Phenomena and Conditions in Bridge Decks That Confound Ground-Penetrating Radar Data Analysis

    Barnes, Christopher L. / Trottier, Jean-François | Transportation Research Record | 2002