A revolutionary NDT project, devised to investigate the internal condition of traditional civil engineering structures and materials, is about to take off at TWI.
Its aims are to develop two new non-destructive methods for inspecting both the concrete and internal steelwork of large, possibly ageing structures like bridges, aqueducts and reinforced concrete buildings.
The techniques used will identify dangerous levels of age-related degradation, invariably caused by water ingress into surface cracks, resulting in corrosion of internal steel reinforcement bar and pre-stressed tendons.
Dubbed the CROSS-IT Project it is collaboratively funded by the European Union under the FP7 framework, under grant agreement no 286981.
The inspection technology to be adopted in CROSS-IT is a hybrid. It will combine the positioning advantages of using Ground Penetrating Radar, to locate the internal tendons, with the NDT capabilities of using Ultrasonic Guided Waves, to detect flaws and corrosion within the pre-stressed and post-stressed steel tendons.
The system will scan the concrete, steel reinforcement bar and tendons and display the results as a visual 3D map on a dedicated laptop running a purpose designed program.
The major technology that will be developed during the two year project will be the computer modelling of the concrete to steel interface including the attenuation presented to the NDT signals, the Ground Penetrating Radar including antenna design, Ultrasonic transducers and array configurations and the computer program used to display the results to the user.
These are early days on the project and the full scope has yet to be defined with the participants which include the world-renowned W S Atkins consultancy, as the end user.
To learn more about the CROSS-IT project contact Kamer Tuncbilek (kamer.tuncbilek@twi.co.uk).
