Detection of Sizes and Locations Air Voids in Reinforced Concrete Slab using Ground Penetrating Radar and Impact-Echo Methods

Abstract

 The presence of inevitable air void defects in reinforced concrete components due to poor quality control during construction can further aggravate the moisture and chloride penetration in concrete to accelerate the corrosion process of the reinforcing steel. Non-destructive test  (NDT) methods, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Impact-Echo (IE), are utilised tp detect the void defects. This study is to compare the accuracy and limitations of both methods in detecting the sizes and depths of the air voids. The sample is a 600 × 400 ×200 mm3 reinforced grade 40 concrete slab with embedded air voids in the sample. The air-voids are introduced in the concrete slab by positioning air-void plastic balls with diameters of 67, 45, 27, 20 and 3 mm each at the depths of 70, 80, 100, 80 and 80 mm, respectively, from the top surface of the slab. Results show that GPR can detect the air voids with sizes larger than 20 mm in diameter with error ranging from -8.9 to 30% from their actual diameters. The IE method is only able to detect the air voids depths and not the voids’ sizes. It is also observed that the void depth estimation acquired by GPR is more accurate only for large size void (67 mm), but for sizes less than that, IE is more accurate in determining their locations. Both methos should be considered for NDT application in detecting voids depending on which parameter accuracy is inticipated.