Procedure to Interpret Electrical Conductivity Measurements in Cover Concrete during Rewetting
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 17, Issue 5
Abstract
This paper discusses the interpretation of electrical conductivity measurements in concrete to assess water penetration. Specifically, a series of finite element simulations were performed to develop an analytical function that relates the measured electrical conductivity to the position of the moisture front inside a concrete specimen. The effects of specimen size and electrode location were considered in the simulations. An approach is demonstrated whereby the measured conductivity was used to determine the position of the moisture front after rewetting thereby enabling the sorption properties of the cover concrete to be evaluated. The method described in this paper improves on previous approaches in that it enables resolving the position of moisture front based on only one electrical measurement and properties of the saturated and unsaturated concrete. This allows the use of one electrode pair to detect the position of moisture front at any time a measurement is performed.
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Acknowledgments
The writers gratefully acknowledge the support received from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. NSF0134272: a Career Award granted to the second writer. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The writers also gratefully acknowledge the support received from the Center for Advanced Cement-Based Materials (ACBM).
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 17 • Issue 5 • October 2005
Pages: 586 - 594
Copyright
© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 31, 2004
Accepted: Nov 22, 2004
Published online: Oct 1, 2005
Published in print: Oct 2005
Notes
Note. Associate Editor: Chiara F. Ferraris
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