Ultrasonic wave propagation in cementitious materials: a multiphase approach of a self-consistent multiple scattering model.

This paper examines ultrasonic wave propagation through strongly heterogeneous materials such as cementitious materials, and deals meanly with the formulation of a multiphase approach of a self-consistent multiple scattering model, the so-called dynamic generalized self-consistent model (DGSCM) proposed by Yang [J. Appl. Mech. 70(2003) 575-582]. This extended model can describe the influence of the size and volume fraction of aggregates on cementitious materials, as well as the interaction, contribution, and influence of entrapped air voids together with the aggregates on frequency-dependent parameters such as the phase velocity and the attenuation coefficient. To show the performance of this approach, theoretical predictions were compared with experimental ultrasonic measurements over a wide frequency range from several mortar specimens with different features in their microstructure properties and concentrations of aggregates up to 60%. The multiphase approaches of both the DGSCM and the Waterman-Truell model (WT) were also compared. The obtained results of the multiphase DGSCM were found to be significantly better than those obtained from the N-phase WT model for ultrasonic measurements from cementitious materials at high aggregate concentrations. The feasibility of material characterization using the multiphase approach of DGSCM was also discussed.

Sand/cement ratio evaluation on mortar using neural networks and ultrasonic transmission inspection.

The quality and degradation state of building materials can be determined by nondestructive testing (NDT). These materials are composed of a cementitious matrix and particles or fragments of aggregates. Sand/cement ratio (s/c) provides the final material quality; however, the sand content can mask the matrix properties in a nondestructive measurement. Therefore, s/c ratio estimation is needed in nondestructive characterization of cementitious materials. In this study, a methodology to classify the sand content in mortar is presented. The methodology is based on ultrasonic transmission inspection, data reduction, and features extraction by principal components analysis (PCA), and neural network classification. This evaluation is carried out with several mortar samples, which were made while taking into account different cement types and s/c ratios. The estimated s/c ratio is determined by ultrasonic spectral attenuation with three different broadband transducers (0.5, 1, and 2 MHz). Statistical PCA to reduce the dimension of the captured traces has been applied. Feed-forward neural networks (NNs) are trained using principal components (PCs) and their outputs are used to display the estimated s/c ratios in false color images, showing the s/c ratio distribution of the mortar samples.

Porosity estimation of aged mortar using a micromechanical model.

Degradation of concrete structures located in high humidity atmospheres or under flowing water is a very important problem. In this study, a method for ultrasonic non-destructive characterization in aged mortar is presented. The proposed method makes a prediction of the behaviour of aged mortar accomplished with a three phase micromechanical model using ultrasonic measurements. Aging mortar was accelerated by immersing the probes in ammonium nitrate solution. Both destructive and non-destructive characterization of mortar was performed. Destructive tests of porosity were performed using a vacuum saturation method and non-destructive characterization was carried out using ultrasonic velocities. Aging experiments show that mortar degradation not only involves a porosity increase, but also microstructural changes in the cement matrix. Experimental results show that the estimated porosity using the proposed non-destructive methodology had a comparable performance to classical destructive techniques.

Time-varying prediction filter for structural noise reduction in ultrasonic NDE.

Predominant physical phenomenon in highly scattering materials is the attenuation due to dispersion. Therefore, received echo has high frequencies more severely attenuated than low frequencies and the structural noise can be modeled as a non-stationary random process. Most of the proposed techniques for enhancing the flaw visibility do not exploit the frequency dependency of the incoming flaw signal, assuming homogeneous behaviour of the insonified material. In this work, a new technique based on exploiting the non-stationary nature of the incoming UT signal is presented. Proposed technique is based on the prediction error obtained with a linear and time-varying parametric model of the noise. By this method, when the analyzed UT echo has only structural noise, the prediction error is low, however, if it contains a flaw, high prediction error occurs because a flaw is a non-predictable alteration of the material structure. Experiments with stainless steel show that this method has an excellent performance on SNR enhancement.

Speckle reduction by energy time-frequency filtering.

Structural noise is a very important limitation to the visibility of flaw echoes in ultrasonic testing and evaluation of highly scattering materials. In order to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio, different algorithms have been developed. One of these techniques is based on filtering the spectrum low band of the received echo to obtain a significant improvement of the defect visibility. Based on this idea, in this work a new time-frequency technique is presented. In this method, block-processing autoregressive techniques are used to estimate the instantaneous center frequency of the traveling wave. From this information, a time-frequency filter is designed tuned at half the estimated instantaneous center frequency. Experimental results and the comparison with the non-time-frequency filtering technique are also included, showing that the proposed method has an excellent performance on SNR enhancement.

Effect of the fluid in the inclusions of cement paste on the ultrasonic velocity.

The durability of cement composites significantly depends on the movement of the fluids into the material through the porous system. The aqueous phase contained in the pores can cause irreversible damage from the dimensional stability viewpoint. In this sense, methods for non-destructive characterization of both, the porous structure and water content should be investigated. In this work, the effect of the fluid in the inclusions of the cement paste on the ultrasonic velocity is studied. Firstly, a theoretical analysis based on the micromechanical model, considering the microstructural information of the matrix and the fluid filling the pores, is presented. Some experimental work is made later using cement paste samples, whose porous structure is maintained dry or saturate with water. In both cases, the ultrasonic velocity is measured and compared to the one predicted by the micromechanical model. Using this technique, the ultrasonic velocity can be predicted with errors below 2% in the cases of dry or water saturated cement paste.

Application of micromechanics to the characterization of mortar by ultrasound.

Mechanical properties of concrete and mortar structures can be estimated by ultrasonic non-destructive testing. When the ultrasonic velocity is known, there are standardized methods based on considering the concrete a homogeneous material. Cement composites, however, are heterogeneous and porous, and have a negative effect on the mechanical properties of structures. This work studies the impact of porosity on mechanical properties by considering concrete a multiphase material. A micromechanical model is applied in which the material is considered to consist of two phases: a solid matrix and pores. From this method, a set of expressions is obtained that relates the acoustic velocity and Young's modulus of mortar. Experimental work is based on non-destructive and destructive procedures over mortar samples whose porosity is varied. A comparison is drawn between micromechanical and standard methods, showing positive results for the method here proposed.