The maintenance and repair of reinforced concrete structures, especially those submerged in the sea-water, require effective inspection and monitoring techniques for assessing the state of corrosion in reinforcement material. An underwater inspection system was developed which is able to monitor the reinforcement corrosion. The system is ROV equipped with the sealed tube neutron generator (NG). By rotating the NG and by using the associated alpha particle technique it is possible to measure the concrete cover depth together with the reinforcing bar diameter. The possibility to estimate the carbon and chloride content in the concrete was investigated. Iron plates of different thickness, covered by 6 cm thick concrete block, were successfully detected and the thickness of the concrete cover was estimated. In addition, reinforced bar of one and three centimeters in diameter was identified and measured.

Date Published: 9 May 2012
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 8366, Advanced Environmental, Chemical, and Biological Sensing Technologies IX, 83660B (9 May 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.918247

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8366:
Advanced Environmental, Chemical, and Biological Sensing Technologies IX
Tuan Vo-Dinh; Robert A. Lieberman; Günter Gauglitz, Editor(s)