Rapid damage assessment of concrete bridge deck leveraging an automated double-sided bounce system

We demonstrate the automated crack evaluation system for the rapid characterization of internal/external concrete structures. Practical generation and detection of reliable and consistent mechanical waves are made possible using an automatic impactor and air-coupled sensors, offering the potential to overcome limitations associated with the rapid damage assessment towards traffic disruption-free measurement. The objective is to demonstrate enhanced performance in laboratory and field tests when arrays of double-sided bounce impactors and microelectromechanical systems are used, suitable for automation without lane closures. The inspection includes detecting delamination, vertical cracks, and corroded reinforcement using flexural vibration mode of impact-echo testing, wave attenuation, and radar, respectively. The approach has novelty in three main techniques: the advanced auto-impacting system, multichannel acoustic scanning unit, and integrated scanning platform. The laboratory tests are performed to verify the system's performance under different conditions and parameters to these damages. The proposed system is applied in two highway bridge inspections.

Automated summary

We demonstrate an automated system for evaluating cracks in concrete structures. By using an automatic impactor and air-coupled sensors, we are able to generate and detect reliable mechanical waves, which overcomes limitations of existing rapid damage assessment methods. Laboratory and field tests show that the proposed system performs well in detecting and characterizing cracks.