Design and Development of Drill-Resistance Sensor Technology for Accurately Measuring Microbiologically Corroded Concrete Depths

Abstract

Microbial corrosion of concrete is a severe problem that significantly reduces the service life of underground sewers in countries around the globe. Therefore, water utilities are actively looking for in-situ sensors that can quantify the biologically induced concrete corrosion levels, in order to carry out preventive maintenance before any catastrophic failures. As a solution, this paper introduces a drill-resistance based sensor that can accurately measure the depth of the microbiologically corroded concrete layer. A prototype sensor was developed and evaluated in laboratory test conditions. The lab experiments proved that the developed sensor has the ability to measure the depth of the microbiologically corroded concrete with millimeter level of accuracy. Additionally, the sensor can also locate and accurately measure the size of concrete aggregates as well as potential cracks, effectively creating a sub-surface 'scan' of the concrete at the targeted point of interest. Therefore, providing valuable extra information for assessing the condition of the sewer concrete.

Short-term Time Series Forecasting of Concrete Sewer Pipe Surface Temperature

“…3) Prophet Model: The Prophet model is a forecasting method developed by the researchers in Facebook [22]. The Prophet model forecast value P (t) at time t is given by (5):…”

“…The corroded layers of the concrete can fall off while drilling, which can lead to misinterpretation on the rate of corrosion. Recently, a concept of micro-drilling based sensing technology [5] was reported for estimating the thickness of the corroded concrete layer. This sensor is an invasive type and needs human traversing in sewers for taking measurements like core sampling.…”

Condition Assessment for Concrete Sewer Pipes Using Displacement Probes: A Robotic Design Case Study

“…It is simply too resource intensive to deploy drill core analysis on a large scale. An alternate experimental laboratory drilling technique characterises resistance as a drill bit makes contact with the surface of the concrete [16]. The productivity issues with drill core analysis can be addressed by developing a device which can rapidly measure internal diameter and physically probe through corrosion, without the need for a person to go into a concrete sewer pipe.…”

Real-Time Concrete Crack Detection and Instance Segmentation using Deep Transfer Learning

“…Use of robotic devices and smart sensors for infrastructure monitoring has become popular in recent years in places where human access is difficult [1][2][3]. Nowadays, visual inspection of larger civil structures is done using remotely controlled drones.…”