Condition Assessments with UPV – Grade Beam
Dallas, TX
When we visually notice a flaw or honeycombing on a concrete structural support (beam, column, girder…) that usually means there is/are also delamination (the process of a material breaking or being broken into thin layers) or some kind of internal defect in it as well.
In this example, that aforementioned statement is proven otherwise.
The first image shows the affected area on a section of the grade beam (see image #1). There is a noticeable honeycombing at the bottom of the grade beam.
OmniVueNDT was contracted to perform a flaw and integrity check on an affected structural support beam of a building (see image #1). A non-destructive testing (NDT) procedure was utilized for this project to provide information about potential flaws or voids inside the concrete grade beam.
UPV-Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity instrument was used to perform the integrity check due to the accessibility of both sides on this beam. Signal velocity readings were collected based on the given wall thickness information and the signal trace characteristic (see image #2 and #3).
After the data collection a 2.5D numeric interpretation was ready to be used as preliminary information about the condition of structural support. The result of post processing was an actual contour map (heat map, see image #4 and #5) incorporated with the LiDAR imaging 3D model for better data interpretation and visualization purposes.
As it turned out, the signal velocity in this concrete beam was uniform (same colors on produced map).
Image #1
Image #2
Image #3
Image #4
Image #5
