Thermal Response for a Reinforced Concrete Slab Analyzed with Active Infrared Thermography and Comsol Multiphysics

Abstract

This paper presents a non-destructive technique (NDT) using active infrared thermography and FEM analyses with Comsol Multiphysics software applied for thermal distribution detection through reinforced concrete. For this work a reinforced concrete slab was created having a parallelepiped shape, the length and the width of 400 mm and the thickness of 50 mm. The concrete slab was reinforced using a rebar mesh of 18 mm diameter. The experimental installation consisted of an electrical heating source and a steel frame for fixing the slab and for the thermal distribution analyses an infrared camera was used. The same type of material and conditions like in the laboratory was used for the FEM analyses in Comsol Multiphysiscs to compare with the experimental part. A concrete slab without steel was used to determine the difference between the simple concrete and reinforced concrete in the heat transfer process.

Long-Term Numerical Analysis of Subsurface Delamination Detection in Concrete Slabs via Infrared Thermography

“…Numerical analysis and IRT have been integrated to detect or examine damages in concrete structures [25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. However, only a few researchers have studied the combination of passive IRT and FEM to improve inspection of concrete bridges.…”