Muon Tomography of the Interior of a Reinforced Concrete Block: First Experimental Proof of Concept

Niederleithinger, Ernst; Gardner, S.; Kind, Thomas; Kaiser, R.; Grunwald, Marcel; Yang, Guangliang; Redmer, Bernhard; Waske, Anja; Mielentz, Frank; Effner, Ute; Köpp, Christian; Clarkson, A.; Thomson, Francis; Ryan, M. J.; Mahon, D.

doi:10.1007/s10921-021-00797-3

Cited by 13 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(26 reference statements)

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“…3). The same specimen is used [29] for muon tomography imaging of its interior, whose paper also includes photos of the specimen. The calculated thickness resonance frequency is approximately 10.5 kHz.…”

Section: Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detection of Delaminations in Concrete Plates Using a Laser Ablation Impact Echo Technique

et al. 2023

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This study investigates the non-destructive detection of delaminations in concrete plates using non-contact laser ablation, instead of the conventional hammer excitation, as part of the impact echo method. We performed tests on five concrete specimens of different sizes, two of which contained artificial delaminations. A range of steel ball hammers was used as reference impulse sources, the responses of which were compared with wave excitation generated by a 7 ns pulsed 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser with 150 mJ pulse energy. Signals were recorded by surface-mounted accelerometers and two contactless methods: microphones and a laser Doppler vibrometer. The laser generates frequencies across a broad range of frequencies (0 to 150 kHz) but with much less energy than the hammers' narrower frequency spectra; the laser pulse energy transferred into the specimen is 0.07 mJ, corresponding to about 0.5 ‰ of the impulse source energy. Because of this, the thick intact plates' characteristic thickness stretch resonance frequency can be reliably detected by the hammer excitations but not when using laser excitation. However, the laser can excite low-frequency flexural vibration modes over a shallow delamination at 3 cm depth. The low-frequency flexural vibration results are verified by numerical natural frequency analysis.

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Section: Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detection of Delaminations in Concrete Plates Using a Laser Ablation Impact Echo Technique

et al. 2023

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“…The authors acknowledge the contributions of many co-authors and experimentators at University of Glasgow, Lynkeos ltd. and BAM, who made the evaluation experiment published in [13] possible. The simulation work carried out by GY was supported by the RSE Saltire International Collaboration award.…”

Section: Acknowledgementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The application to detailed examination of reinforced concrete structures has been investigated [12]. This paper summarizes the results of an evaluation experiment using a reference specimen in a laboratory detector [13] and shows a potential application to detect grouting flaws in tendon ducts based on simulations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Muon tomography applied to assessment of concrete structures: First experiments and simulations

Niederleithinger¹,

Yang²,

Mahon³

et al. 2022

eJNDT

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Non-destructive techniques for reinforced or prestressed concrete inspection such as ultrasound or radar have found regular, successful practical application but sometimes suffer from limited resolution and accuracy, imaging artefacts or restrictions in detecting certain features. Until the 1980s X-ray transmission was used in case of special demands and showed a much better resolution than other NDT techniques. However, due to safety concerns and cost issues, this method is almost never used anymore. Muon tomography has received much attention recently. Novel detectors for cosmic muons and tomographic imaging algorithms have opened new fields of application. As a first step towards practical application in civil engineering and as a proof of concept we used an existing system to image the interior of a reference reinforced 600 kg concrete block. Even with a yet not optimized setup for this kind of investigation, the muon imaging results are at least of similar quality compared to ultrasonic and radar imaging, potentially even better. In a second step, we have performed simulations to assess the potential for a set of important testing problems such as grouting defects in tendon ducts. The next steps include the development of mobile detectors and optimizing acquisition and imaging parameters.

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“…Security applications have been mainly focused on detection of lumps of high-Z material in cargo containers [17,18], but work on the detection of explosives is ongoing as well [19]. Examples include experimental studies of imaging of concrete blocks [20][21][22]. Muon scattering tomography has been also used for imaging Fukushima Daiichi reactors [23] or Fukushima reactors [24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of muon scattering tomography for detection of reinforcement in concrete

Dobrowolska¹,

Velthuis²,

Kopp³

et al. 2022

J. Inst.

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Inspection of ageing, reinforced concrete structures is a world-wide challenge. Existing evaluation techniques in civil and structural engineering have limited penetration depth and do not allow to precisely ascertain the configuration of reinforcement within large concrete objects. The big challenge for critical infrastructure (bridges, dams, dry docks, nuclear bioshields etc.) is understanding the internal condition of the concrete and steel, not just the location of the reinforcement. Muon scattering tomography is a non-destructive and non-invasive technique which shows great promise for high-depth 3D concrete imaging. Here a method is presented to locate reinforcement meshes placed in a large-scale concrete object. A reinforcement mesh was simulated as two layers of 2 m long bars, forming a mesh. Two layers of the mesh were placed at several distances from each other inside a large concrete block. Previously, we have shown that using our autocorrelation technique for single meshes inside the concrete and using only one week worth of data taking, bars with a diameter of 7 mm and larger, could easily be detected for a 10 cm mesh spacing. The signal for 6 mm diameter bar exceeds the background and becomes very clear after two weeks of data taking. Here we show that we can detect the vertical positions of two mesh layers inside the concrete. This is a very important result for non-destructive evaluation of civil structures.

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Muon Tomography of the Interior of a Reinforced Concrete Block: First Experimental Proof of Concept

Cited by 13 publications

References 23 publications

Detection of Delaminations in Concrete Plates Using a Laser Ablation Impact Echo Technique

Detection of Delaminations in Concrete Plates Using a Laser Ablation Impact Echo Technique

Muon tomography applied to assessment of concrete structures: First experiments and simulations

Development of muon scattering tomography for detection of reinforcement in concrete

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