Intelligent Monitoring structures concrete in their

environment:

ConcreteLife
DS.FT.ConcreteLife.09

Technical Reference

Construction - Civil Engineering - Nuclear

sectors
Characteristics

Enables the traceability of the concrete structure in its life cycle

Identifies risk of failure during the construction phase (youth) and

degradation over time

Provides help for indicators based control risk and reduce the costs of
repair / maintenance

Background and applications:

The system innovation instrumentations ConcreteLife is based on the fact that the measurements from the concrete structures
include not only the behavior of the structure (mechanical load, thermal water gradients, differential aging) but also of concrete
material (withdrawal / swelling, early age behavior, degradation) and that of the enviroment (sunshine, trades thermal water , rainfall).

ConcreteLife offers an innovative approach to instrumentation, interpretation and Eve decorrelate to these three components:

Material

Structure

Environment

The system ConcreteLife following your works to the construction phase (early age behavior dice and taking curing) in the
operating phase (long-term aging in its environment, repair, requalification). An alert system allows the work manager to quantify
risks for optimal maintenance of the book. (Early age cracking, reaction sulphatic Internal Corrosion of steel, carbonation, creep,
Alkali\Aggregate..Reaction).

This document is the property of CEMENTYS and must not be copied, reproduced, duplicated totally or partially to third parties,
nor used in any way without the written consent of CEMENTYS, Copyright 2009
CEMENTYS SAS 27 Daviel Villa, 75013 Paris, www.cementys.com

ConcreteLife integrates instrumentation, analysis and risk management structuressustainable and industrial facilities of
high technologies:

Dams and dikes

Nuclear center

Bridges and overpasses

storage center and tanks

Tunnels and Pipelines

Foundations works

Offshore platforms in concrete

specific structures (IGH, Terminals, halls)

Principle System ConcreteLife

In several studies of structures with thermal and moisture gradients , we have developed a methodology of decoupling of the imporatant
phenomena measured by a dedicated instrumentation. This method is based on the principle of superposition of deformations during the life of
the structure.

Total

= thermal+

free

mechanical

cracking

with

free

free deformities including free withdrawal (endogenous, desiccation,carbonation) and thermal

dimensional change (with a constant coefficient of expansion taken or not)

Mechanical

Cracking

withdrawal

elastic

microfissuration

creep

the deformations linked to the external mechanical stresses applied to concrete (elastic deformation
and instant medium and long term creep)

+ w/l0

local deformation of the irreversible bound concrete microcracking concrete and opening /
closing a discreet crack (w crack opening on the basis of length l0)

The analysis of deformations of the structure has been conducted since the beginning of the setting and curing the concrete to the
long-term aging of concrete in its environment (drying, carbonation, leaching). Using the fact that these phenomena thermal,
chemical, water and mechanical occur at different time scales, the method

ConcreteLife is an approach that gradually decorrelate chain measured strains (Figure 1).

mechanical

cracking withdrawal

thermal

Concrete instrumented
structure

withdrawal

thermal

specimen test

This document is the property of CEMENTYS and must not be copied, reproduced, duplicated totally or partially to third parties,
nor used in any way without the written consent of CEMENTYS, Copyright 2009
CEMENTYS SAS 27 Daviel Villa, 75013 Paris, www.cementys.com

Figure 1: Principle of decorrelation of the channel distortions by the approach ConcreteLife

Use specimens Witnesses instrumented concrete facilitates this decorrelation ( ConcreteWitnesesmbedded in the structure, exterior insulated
box Concreteheat).
The main mechanical stresses in the case of a monotonic loading are then evaluated from the mechanical deformation depending
on the specific method:
Plane deformation mode (if massive sections):

flat mode constraints (if slender and thin structures):

The Young's modulus E can be instantaneous or delayed depending on the duration of application of the mechanical stress. It can be
determined experimentally with an identification test instantaneous Young's modulus and long-term deferredViscoVib. the coefficientof Possion
is taken equal to 0.2.
Modeling phenomena identified across the material is possible to assess their influence on the mechanical behavior of the overall work
(modeling finite elements). The interaction auscultation and modeling constructive way:

Auscultation feeds the digital model: the information collected by the developer of the auscultation system used to refine the
parameters of the numerical model and to take account of new phenomena (under pressure, swelling RSI, swelling RAG
settlement ...)

The numerical model feeds auscultation: the new calculation results allow to refine the interpretation of monitoring
measurements and enhance the safety of the judgment of the condition of the structure. They provide a new normal in fact a
reference for diagnostics.

Our user clients ConcreteLife:

Bonna Sabla: demonstrator Package CSDC HAVL (ANDRA - CEA) ANDRA: repository of low and medium activity Dawn

Technical Reference
Lamour V., Haouas A. Dubois J.-Ph. Fish & R. (2009) Long term monitoring of wide massive concrete structures: Cumulative
effects of thermal gradients. 7th International Symposium on Non Destructive Testing in Civil Engineering (NDTCE'09),
Nantes, France.

This document is the property of CEMENTYS and must not be copied, reproduced, duplicated totally or partially to third parties,
nor used in any way without the written consent of CEMENTYS, Copyright 2009
CEMENTYS SAS 27 Daviel Villa, 75013 Paris, www.cementys.com

Continuous measurements In Situ

Central Autonomous acquisition (packaging, storage, communication)

Decorrelation of live events

Output key parameters: stress - cracking - damage

Detection limit violations Managing

Alerts (email - SMS) Accumulated
damage and deterioration
Scoreboard induced risks

Project Manager

This document is the property of CEMENTYS and must not be copied, reproduced, duplicated totally or partially to third parties,
nor used in any way without the written consent of CEMENTYS, Copyright 2009
CEMENTYS SAS 27 Daviel Villa, 75013 Paris, www.cementys.com