Subsurface Damage Assessment In Mortar Using Electrical Impedance Tomography

Volume 12 Issue 3 February - April 2017

Research Paper

Subsurface Damage Assessment In Mortar Using Electrical Impedance Tomography

T. Ruan*, Poursaee**

* Research Scientist, Zhejiang Institute of Transportation, Hangzhou, China.

** Assistant Professor, Glenn Department of Civil Engineering, Clemson University, South Carolina, USA.

Ruan, T., and Poursaee (2017). Subsurface Damage Assessment In Mortar Using Electrical Impedance Tomography. i-manager’s Journal on Future Engineering and Technology, 12(3), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.26634/jfet.12.3.13429

Abstract

The objective of this study was to explore the feasibility of implementing Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) in assessing invisible subsurface damages in mortar specimens. Damages with different geometries and sizes were artificially created using a rotary saw with diamond blade, polypropylene plastic sheet and Poly-Vinyl Chloride (PVC) pipe on one side (bottom surface) of mortar specimens and the EIT tests were performed on the other side (top surface) of the specimens. Although, employing conductive materials in the mixture, using conductive paint on the surface, and saturating specimens can improve the precision and quality of the images they do not represent the actual field condition. Thus, in this study, no specific treatment was employed to collect the data for constructing the images. With the aid of numerical simulation and inverse calculation, two-dimensional images were reconstructed and recognized the artificial damages. The reconstructed images accurately identified the location of the damages and the sizes were qualitatively estimated. This study successfully shows the potentials of utilizing EIT technique in Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) of mortar structures.