Experimental study of crack depth measurement of concrete with ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV)

Abstract

This research was conducted to know the effect of reinforcement and distance tranducer effective in detecting the depth of concrete cracks. The test specimen used is a 15x15x60 cm3 concrete beam with a concrete quality of 19 MPa. The test material is made of artificial cracks as depth as 2cm, 4cm, 6cm, and any fractured variation made 3 pieces of speciment, in addition to the test object was given a reinforcement of 8 mm which is placed horizontally in the center of the beam at a depth of 4 cm from the concrete surface. This testing using indirect method with variations of tranducer distance of 3cm, 6cm, 9cm, and 12cm. The study concluded that the accuracy of UPV testing results was influenced by reinforcement and distance tranducer. Test speciment with an artificial crack depth of 2cm and 4cm have a greater reading result with a relative error of 36.8% and 16.5%, while the test object with an artificial crack depth of 6cm has a smaller reading result with a relative error 3.4%. In addition, it obtained an effective tranducer distance of 12cm with an accuracy of 85.4%.