Article Article
Combined NDT Correlation to Estimate the Compressive Strength of Concrete

This paper deals with estimating the compressive strength of concrete specimen using the combined method of ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) and rebound hammer (RH) tests. Compressive strength is an important parameter to evaluate concrete structures. Generally, the destructive methods like removing ‘core sample’ from an existing structures are considered as reliable methods to assess the quality of concrete already in place. However, these test methods are expensive and can be detrimental to the structure. Nondestructive tests (NDT) like UPV and RH tests are used to overcome these disadvantages. They are widely used to assess the quality of concrete. The individual test results from UPV or RH methods may not be reliable for estimating the compressive strength, as there are different factors like aggregate size, curing age, and curing conditions that influences the measurements. In this study, several concrete samples were casted based on three different mix designs with the targeted compressive strengths of 41 MPa, 55 MPa, and 83 MPa. All of the concrete samples were cured under laboratory conditions and tested after 28 days curing period. UPV and RH tests were performed followed by crushing the cylindrical samples to evaluate the compressive strength. Effect of moisture on UPV and RH measurements was studied and the results have shown that RH measurements are significantly affected by the moisture in concrete specimens. The results from both UPV and RH tests were combined and correlated to the measured compressive strength values. This study was focused on creating a correlation curve by combining the results from UPV and RH tests and then performing multiple regression analysis between UPV, RH, and the measured compressive strengths. The accuracy of this correlation curves was determined by comparing the estimated compressive strengths to the measured compressive strengths.

DOI: 10.32548/RS.2019.003

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