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Radio Frequency as a Non-Destructive Approach to Concrete Structure Health Monitoring

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Abstract

Concrete is the most common material used in civil infrastructure building. However, concrete deformation such as cracks, abnormalities, or voids can develop at any time during its life cycle or during use. As a result, a tangible assessment is required to determine its strength and quality status. The most prevalent non-destructive approach for assessing the state of concrete structures is the radio frequency (RF) method. However, issues occur when the sample surface is only partially accessible. As a result, this article uses the sensor on the tested concrete to analyse RF as non-destructive testing (NDT). The concrete system is simulated using the COMSOL Multiphysics. The scattering parameters are used to analyse the dielectric characteristics of the sample using the output signal from the sensor. The value for the dielectric constant ranges from 15 to 18. The results are then verified using the Debye model to determine the concrete sample’s dielectric characteristics.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported under project “Evolutionary analyses of sculptures in cultural heritage by non-destructive microwave spectroscopy” funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, under Grant DST/TDT/SHRI-38/2018 (G).

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Correspondence to Nitika Dhingra.

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The authors declare that we do not have known competing interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work of the paper. We have read the final version of the manuscript and are responsible for what is written in it.

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Dhingra, N., Saluja, N., Garg, R. et al. Radio Frequency as a Non-Destructive Approach to Concrete Structure Health Monitoring. Iran J Sci Technol Trans Civ Eng 47, 2581–2589 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40996-023-01056-3

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