Effect of thermal excitation mechanism on detection of subsurface defects in concrete using infrared thermography

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Abstract

Healthy bridges are the foundation of a resilient transport network and thereby are necessary for sustainable development. This paper presents the latest findings on application of infrared thermography (IRT) as a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) technique for the diagnosis of subsurface damage in the concrete elements of bridges. In this research, the effect of the thermal excitation mechanism for the purpose of subsurface defect detection was studied by comparing the test results from three heat sources, namely convection heat exchange, step-heating using an IR heater and solar irradiance. A sequence of IR images was collected for each test slab, with varying depths of subsurface defects, and the temperature record was analysed to evaluate the thermal contrast variation for each of the three heat excitation mechanisms. From the analysis of the IRT images, it was shown that the heat excitation mechanism affects the trend of the temporal variation of thermal contrast and the magnitude of the thermal contrast. The analysis of the results also showed that the trend of the thermal contrast variation with the depth of the defect was nonlinear for all the thermal excitation sources and is dependent on the depth of subsurface defects. Since the thermal excitation directly correlates to the input power, these observations emphasise the importance of the input power as the parameter for further experimental and numerical studies toward optimised practical implementation of IRT for SHM of concrete bridges and towards intelligent diagnostics of hidden defects and assessing the changing rate of subsurface damage regarding the safety of concrete structures.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 11th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (SHMII-11)
PublisherInternational Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure, ISHMII
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2022
Event11th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of intelligent Infrastructure, SHMII 2022 - Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
Duration: 08 Aug 202212 Aug 2022
https://shmii11.encs.concordia.ca/

Publication series

NameInternational Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure: Proceedings
ISSN (Electronic)2564-3738

Conference

Conference11th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of intelligent Infrastructure, SHMII 2022
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityMontreal
Period08/08/202212/08/2022
Internet address

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