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Damage Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Structures Using Fractal Analysis of Residual Crack Patterns

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Abstract

Currently, assessing the performance and safety of reinforced concrete structures relies on routine-based visual inspection (VI). Cracks width measurements are commonly used as a convenient indicator of damage; however other factors, such as distribution and pattern of the cracks should be considered equally important in measuring the extent of damage present in the structure. As a result, condition assessed by VI is subjective in nature and depends on the experience, knowledge, expertise, and judgment of the inspector carrying out the assessment. A new approach based on the fractal analysis of residual crack patterns is proposed in this paper to assess the structural integrity of reinforced concrete elements. A new damage index is presented to quantitatively perform a damage classification. The methodology is validated through experimental studies on two large-scale reinforced concrete shear walls subjected to a displacement controlled reversed cyclic loading. Damage grades are also identified based on width of cracks and proposed damage index (DI). The results demonstrate a more accurate estimation of damage grades using DI. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the DI can estimate the relative stiffness loss of the specimens with acceptable accuracy.

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Abbreviations

DG:

Damage grade

FD:

Fractal dimension

DI:

Damage index

HD:

High definition

IAEA:

International atomic energy agency

LS:

Load step

NDE:

Non-destructive evaluation

RC:

Reinforced concrete

RT :

Transition box size

RO :

Object box size

RS :

Structure box size

RD :

Discretization size

RCSW:

Reinforced concrete shear wall

RSL:

Relative stiffness loss

SHM:

Structural health monitoring

SW:

Shear wall

VI:

Visual inspection

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge National Science Foundation (NSF) for providing the financial support under Grant No. CMMI-0829978. The experiments presented herein could not have been completed without contributions from the staff of the Structural Engineering and Earthquake Simulation Laboratory (SEESL) of the State University of New York at Buffalo. The financial support and work of the SEESL staff are gratefully acknowledged. The authors also acknowledge the advice and help provided by the technical staff at the NEES Equipment Site at the University at Buffalo.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Smart Structures Research Laboratory, Department of Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, 212 Ketter Hall, Buffalo, NY, 14260, USA

    A. Farhidzadeh, E. Dehghan-Niri, A. Moustafa & S. Salamone

  2. Department of Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, 212 Ketter Hall, Buffalo, NY, 14260, USA

    A. Whittaker

Authors
  1. A. Farhidzadeh
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  2. E. Dehghan-Niri
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  3. A. Moustafa
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  4. S. Salamone
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  5. A. Whittaker
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to S. Salamone.

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Farhidzadeh, A., Dehghan-Niri, E., Moustafa, A. et al. Damage Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Structures Using Fractal Analysis of Residual Crack Patterns. Exp Mech 53, 1607–1619 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11340-013-9769-7

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