Title:

Non-Contact Air-Coupled Sensing for NDT of Concrete Structures

Speaker:

Dr. Jinying Zhu

Affiliation:

University of Texas at Austin

When:

Friday, February 22, 2013 at 10:00:00 AM   Add to Calendar

Where:

Sustainable Education Building (SEB) Building, Room 316

Host:

Kimberly Kurtis
kimberly.kurtis@ce.gatech.edu
404-385-0825

Abstract

Elastic wave-based non-destructive testing (NDT) methods are effective for damage detection in concrete structures. However, the requirement for physical contact between sensors and concrete surface and slow testing speed hinder wide application of elastic wave-based NDT methods to large concrete structures. To enable rapid sensing and scanning of concrete infrastructure, the air-coupled sensing is proposed as a solution. In this presentation, I will review the development of air-coupled sensing in civil engineering applications and present most recent progress in realizing a fully non-contact air-coupled sensing system. It includes the following stages of the research: 1) feasibility study through theoretical analysis; 2) air-coupled surface wave and impact-echo tests; 3) improvement of signal-to-noise ratio by using a parabolic reflector; and 4) most recent progress in aircoupled source development. A demonstration of air-coupled testing on a robot scanner will be presented.

Biography

Jinying Zhu is an assistant professor in Department of Civil, Architecture and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006. Her research expertise and interests include NDT for concrete, wave propagation, cement material characterization using innovative sensing techniques. Dr. Zhu is the pioneering researcher in air coupled sensing for concrete. Dr. Zhu is a recipient of the ASNT Fellowship Award in 2012, and three time winner of ACI-James Instrument Award with her students.