Ultrasonic Guided Waves for Pitting Corrosion Monitoring of Reinforced Concrete Structures

This thesis addresses the critical problem of pitting corrosion in reinforced concrete by deploying the guided waves that are generated and sensed by piezoelectric wafer transducers. The damages in the composite system of reinforced concrete are studied by implementing numerical and experimental methods. The numerical models include the co-simulation of stress wave propagation in the reinforced concrete and the piezoelectric behaviour of the transducers. Several damage scenarios such as debonding, diameter reduction and their combination are simulated in these studies. These numerical models are validated with extensive experimental studies on pitting corrosion in rebars embedded in concrete. Damage identification strategies are proposed by examining the ultrasonic guided wave characteristics in undamaged and corroded reinforced concrete beams.