Planning In-Situ Testing of Concrete

for Strength, Durability and

Damages
Planning in-situ testing of concrete for strength, durability and damages
includes considering the most suitable tests to obtain the established goals of
investigation, number of tests needed to show the real state of the concrete,
and the location of these tests.

Planning a program for in-situ testing of concrete will be described in this

article.

Planning In-Situ Testing of Concrete for

Strength, Durability and Damages
 General sequential approach
 Visual inspection
 Test selection
 Number and location of tests

General Sequential Approach for In-Situ Testing of

Concrete

It is significant to arrange an excellent program with analyzing and

interpretation as ongoing activity regardless the motivation or the cause of the
investigation.

Figure-1 illustrates a typical in-situ concrete test program and the investigation
is continuing until strong relevant result is reached.
 Fig.1: Typical Stages of In-Situ Testing of Concrete

Visual Inspection for In-Situ Testing of Concrete

It is possible to obtain useful information especially when well trained eye

does visual inspection. Features of visual inspection might pertain to
workmanship, material deterioration, and structural serviceability.
It is considerably significant for engineers to recognize various types of cracks
which are likely to be encountered; numbers of typical cracks are shown in
Figure-2.

Fig.2: Number of Typical Types of Cracks in Concrete

Honeycomb could be due to low standard workmanship however, excessive

bleeding or segregation at joints of shutters might be resulted from issues in
concrete mixtures and probably lead to plastic shrinkage cracking.
Large deflections and flexural cracking could reflect structural inadequacy and
this often the cause for carrying in-situ assessment of structures.

Structural movements, thermal movements, and long term deflections are

probably led to problems in door frames, cracking of windows, cracking of
structure or its finishes. In these situations, visual inspection comparison of
similar member may give important information.

Material degradation is frequently shown by concrete spalling and surface

cracking and crack pattern assessment could give and initial indication of the
cause.

The most usual causes are steel bar corrosion resulted from insufficient
concrete cover thickness or large chloride concentration, sulfate attack, frost
action, and alkali aggregate reactions.

As shown in Figure-2, the signs of sulfate attacks are developing arbitrary

crack pattern with white layer leached on the surface but, concrete splitting
and spalling in the direction of steel bars are assumed to be indications of
reinforcement corrosion.

Occasionally, an alkali aggregate reaction is recognized by star shaped crack

pattern whereas irregular surface spalling might show frost attacks.

It is reported that, regular crack mapping is an important technique to identify

deterioration reasons and progressions and it gives detailed information about
determination of crack types.

Table-1, which reported by Higgins, provides symptoms pertaining to the most

usual cause of deterioration.
With regard to damages resulted from fire, modification of concrete surface
color and texture could be beneficial guide and color change is broadly
accepted as sign of extent fire damage.

Not only does visual inspection carried out on concrete surface but also it
could include analyzing of drainage channels, expansion joints, bearings, post
tensioning ducts and other similar feature of the structure. Ultra violet
inspection systems can be beneficial to recognize alkali aggregate reactions.

Table-1: Diagnosis of Deteriorations and Defects of In-Situ Concrete

Concrete In-Situ Test Selection

After conducting visual inspection, numbers of factors for example damage,

cost, access, reliability, and speed are considered for the selection of test for
specific situation.

Durability Tests including Reasons and Amount of

Deterioration
Preliminary tests used to examine the threat of reinforcement corrosion, which
resulted from losing passivity due to chloride or carbonation, are commonly
reinforcement cover measurements, chloride concentration, and carbonation
depth in addition to half-cell potential and resistivity testing to achieve more
comprehensive assessment of the large area.

If too much carbonation is discovered to be the reason behind deterioration,

absorption tests and petrographic analysis might be carried out especially
when knowing the cause of excessive carbonation is required.

More details on various tests conducted to examine concrete durability are

provided in Table-2.

Table-2: Concrete In-Situ Durability Tests

In-Situ Testing for Concrete Strength

Core tests that are slow and expensive are the most effective method to
assess concrete strength. However, Pulse velocity and hardness tests lead to
minor damages and at the same time are economical and quick.

Even though, these tests are perfect to comparative and uniformity evaluation
but their correlation to anticipate absolute strength create many issues.

The result of core tests might be employed as base for calibration of partially
destructive and non-destructive test values which can be broadly used later.

Most of normal weight concrete test methods can be used for assessing light
weight concrete strength but the correlation of the results is different.
When the only requirement is comparison with similar concrete quality, then
test selection will depend on practical restrictions of different tests and
occasionally back up tests might be carried out in some regions.

Table-3 provides different tests used to estimate concrete strength.

Table-3: Concrete In-Situ Strength Tests

Testing for Comparative Concrete Quality and

Localized Integrity

Comparative testing is the most dependable application of several tests. Not

only do these tests are led to small or no surface damage but also most of
them are quick to use by which large area can be surveyed regularly.
However, numbers of test methods require complex and high cost equipment.
In-Situ Testing of Concrete for Structural
Performance

Large scale dynamic tests can be used to observe the performance of the
structure. Nonetheless, large scale static load test in conjunction with
monitoring of cracks by acoustic emission may be more suitable despite the
cost and disruption.

The static load tests commonly include measurements of deflection and

cracking but problem with isolated individual elements could be large.

Numbers and Locations for In-Situ Testing of

Concrete

Setting suitable and adequate number of tests can be achieved through

compromising between accuracy, cost, effort, and damage. Test results are
related solely to the test locations from which test sample were taken.

That is why engineering judgment is needed to specify test number and

locations and relevance of results to the entire member.

Therefore, connection between planning and interpretation of result is

extremely significant. Moreover, it is considerably important to understand
concrete variability adequately and have knowledge on reliability of utilized
test methods.

It is considerably important to obtain adequate accuracy when core tests are

used to determine concrete strength or employed as a base for calibration of
other methods of testing.

For comparative purposes, non-destructive tests are the most efficient method
because great number of location can test in short time due to speed test.
Minimum 40 locations are suggested for a member over whom tests stations
are distributed uniformly, but smaller number of tests is required for
comparative purposes.

When other test methods such as internal fracture or Windsor probe tests are
used, practicalities may lead to decrease test numbers. Furthermore, tests for
material specifications compliance should be made on typical concrete, so
weaker top zones of the element must be avoided.

It is recommended that, for columns, beams, and wall should be taken around
mid-height, and surface zone tests on slabs should be limited to soffits except
if the top layer is removed.

It is advised to take at least four core tests from suspected concrete batch
where specification compliance is investigated, and when small cores is
employed minimum of 12 tests are needed.

Finally, the numbers of load tests which are conducted on a structure are
restricted and should be taken at critical locations. The critical or suspect
areas can be determined with the help of visual inspection and non-
destructive tests.

Where destructive tests are carried out for members to give calibration for
non-destructive methods, they should be selected to cover as wide a range of
concrete quality as possible.

Table-4 Provides number of tests assumed to be equivalent to one single

result. The strength prediction accuracy based on reliability of the correlation
employed.

Table-4: Relative Number of Readings Recommended for Various Test

Methods
 Test Methods Recommended Number of Readings at a
Location

Standard cores 3

Small cores 9

Schmidt hammer 12

Ultrasonic pulse velocity 1

Internal fracture 6

Windsor probe 3

Pull-out 4

Pull-off 6

Break-off 5

Read More:

Interpretation of Concrete In-Situ Test Results for Strength Strength

Assessment

Non-Destructive Testing of Concrete

Basic Methods for NDT of Concrete Structures

Concrete Cube Test Results Acceptance