Management of the nation’s aging transportation infrastructure constitutes a growing financial burden. Limited resources are available for inspection, maintenance, repair, rehabilitation and replacement of the deteriorating infrastructure. More efficient management of the aging concrete-based transportation infrastructure, enabled by thorough and practical condition assessment techniques, would allow for effective use of available resources to maintain a viable transportation system. Condition assessment of the vast concrete-based transportation infrastructure is challenged by the complex structure and deterioration mechanisms of concrete, and the complicating effects of surface treatments.
Results from this study will help engineers to identify the cause and extent of damage in existing concrete infrastructure.
The data considered for this project comes from my PhD thesis and other researchers in the field. My thesis includes non destructive testing of concrete infrastructure to inspect concrete for potential deterioration mechanism. I used Nuclear Magnetic Resonance as the main diagnosis tool and other non destructive techniques such as Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity, Dynamic Elastic Modulus Frequency, Ground Penetrating Radar etc. as corroborative test methods. Moreover, I performed destructive test on samples manufactured in the laboratory or obtained from the field to support my findings. The results from other researchers will be added to enrich my data set.
The objective of this study is to create a model to streamline the process of getting and analyzing data from various non destructive test methods and help engineers with their decision on whether the concrete is damaged or not. Furthermore, it helps engineer to identify the type of damage mechanism causing deterioration.