Revealing the Impact of Depth and Surface Property Variations on Infrared Detection of Delamination in Concrete Structures Under Natural Environmental Conditions
Date
2024-12-24
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Buildings
Abstract
Infrared thermography (IRT) is an effective nondestructive testing method for detecting delamination in concrete structures. However, erroneous data interpretation often diminishes its practical utility due to surface irregularities (e.g., color variations) during inspection. These “noisy conditions” alter the temperature distribution of the structure under solar heating cycles, making it challenging to quantify delamination based on the developed thermal contrast (ΔT). This study experimentally investigates the impact of different surface conditions (bare concrete vs. painted surfaces) on ΔT. Artificial delamination at varying depths was simulated and tested under natural environmental conditions, where the maximum ΔT values for shallow delamination were 9.40 °C (bare concrete), 7.35 °C (yellow paint), and 5.15 °C (white paint), respectively. This study measured and analyzed the absorptivity (bare concrete: 0.652, yellow paint: 0.538, and white paint: 0.369), emissivity, and the temperature difference (δT) between non-delaminated areas and air, revealing their correlation with ΔT variation. Based on the results, three typical scenarios are proposed to correlate δT with delamination detection. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the optimal detection window and present a new approach to quantifying delamination at different time windows. The conclusion also discusses the limitations of this study and future research directions.
Description
This article was originally published in Buildings. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15010010.
© 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords
concrete delamination, infrared detection, surface condition variations, delamination depth
Citation
Cheng, Chongsheng, Dequan Chen, Shuai Shao, Ri Na, Haonan Cai, Hongwen Zhou, and Bo Wu. 2025. "Revealing the Impact of Depth and Surface Property Variations on Infrared Detection of Delamination in Concrete Structures Under Natural Environmental Conditions" Buildings 15, no. 1: 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15010010