SEMI & NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTING FOR REINFORCED CONCRETE / STEEL STRUCTURES Concrete Quality Test
Civiltec Testing Services can carry out concrete quality test on concrete structures. Concrete quality can be assessed on site and measured from the correlation of pulse velocity and strength of the structural concrete elements. In addition to being able to determine the uniformity of concrete in and between structural members, the measurement of the velocity of ultrasonic pulses of longitudinal vibrations through concrete can also determine the modulus of elasticity and dynamic Poisson’s ratio of the concrete.
As concrete matures or deteriorates, the changes, which occur with time in its structure, are reflected in either an increase or a decrease, respectively, in the pulse velocity. This enables changes to be monitored by making tests at appropriate intervals of time. Pulse velocity measurements made on concrete structures may be used for quality control purposes.
In comparison with mechanical tests on control samples such as cubes or cylinders, pulse velocity measurements have the advantage that they relate directly to the concrete in the structure rather than to samples, which may not be always truly representative of the concrete in situ.