Electrical methods and systems for concrete testing

摘要

Hundreds of thousands of concrete bridges and hundreds of billions of tons of concrete require characterization with time for corrosion. Accordingly, protocols for rapid testing and improved field characterization systems that automatically triangulate electrical resistivity and half-cell corrosion potential measurements would be beneficial allowing discrete/periodic mapping of a structure to be performed as well as addressing testing for asphalt covered concrete. Further, it is the low frequency impedance of rebar in concrete that correlates to corrosion state but these are normally time consuming vulnerable to noise. Hence, it would be beneficial to provide a means of making low frequency electrical resistivity measurements rapidly. Further, prior art techniques for electrical rebar measurements require electrical connection be made to the rebar which increases measurement complexity/disruption/repair/cost even when no corrosion is identified. Beneficially a method of determining the state of a rebar without electrical contact is taught.

主权项

1. A method comprising;
providing an electrical measurement system for measuring an electrical characteristic of a concrete structure; generating with the electrical measurement system an electrical pulse which is applied with a first probe to a first part of the concrete structure; measuring with the electrical measurement system an output electrical signal with a second probe applied to a second part of the concrete structure, the output electrical signal being the result of application of the electrical pulse to the first part of the concrete structure; applying a predetermined signal processing algorithm to the output electrical signal to generate a low frequency electrical characteristic of the concrete structure; providing at least one beacon of a plurality of beacons, each beacon including a predetermined portion of a transceiver providing pulses of a predetermined format; providing a global positioning system to provide a global position; determining at least a relative location of a plurality of relative locations, each relative location being that of the electrical measurement system relative to a predetermined subset of the plurality of beacons; and storing at least one of the output electrical signal and the low frequency electrical characteristic together with the plurality of relative locations and the global position.