Testing of concrete is imperative to ascertain the strength and resilience of built structures. The field strength of concrete can occur during concrete installation or during the investigative assessment of installed concrete.

The field testing of concrete structures consists of both non-destructive testing and destructive testing. These methods are imperative in completing the field condition survey of buildings.

 

The construction industry takes pride in having tones of non-destructive and destructive methods to choose from such as concrete coring or GPR Scanning.

However, the options in abundance can make you feel at a loss, so you just need to be cognizant of the most common types of destructive and non-destructive methods of concrete testing.

This blog will outline the most common destructive and non-destructive field testing methods of concrete for your knowledge.

Destructive Field Testing of Concrete

If we consider destructive testing methods, it includes exploratory openings, coring, and pull-out testing. This kind of openings can reveal conditions such as depth of cracks, reinforcing size, patterns, and coating information.

Concrete Core Cutting

Concrete coring can determine the conditions, which are similar to exploratory openings, however, on a limited scale. Core cutting is highly beneficial as it can offer insight into depths of cracks, depths of delamination, and reinforcing sizes.

Pull out Testing

Pull-out testing can determine the bond shared between a coating and the concrete substrate or between two cementitious materials. The main purpose of this test is to determine the reliability and load capacity of fixings, including Anchor bolt, Scaffold Anchors, and Safety Lifeline Anchors.

Non-Destructive Testing

Non-destructive methods are opted to evaluate the concrete properties by assessing the strength and other properties such as corrosion of reinforcement, permeability, cracking, and void structure.

Why is this Type of Testing Crucial?

This type of testing is crucial to evaluate both new and old structures. For the new structures, the main applications are majorly used to determine the quality of materials.

What are the Non-Destructive Methods of Testing?

GPR(Ground Penetrating Radar)

Ground Penetrating Radar is a cost-effective, non-destructive and reliable tool for scanning, imaging or subsurface defects, objects, or voids. Originally, GPR was developed to utilize in geophysics and geology for subsurface scanning and imaging.

GPR scanning assesses the subsurface events and objects with electromagnetic radar impulses. The versatility of this non-destructive method makes it unique from other NDT methods.

Windsor Probe

This method offers rapid, accurate determinations of concrete compressive strength. It uses a hardened steel probe which is driven by a powder-actuated charge to penetrate the surface of the concrete.

Coring

Coring though is a ‘destructive’ method, but when it is used with caution, then cores can be extracted from locations that will not impact the integrity of the structure. Core samples are efficient enough to offer the most definitive results to determine the compressive strength, though they might lead to cosmetic change and are labour intensive to extract.

 

Holes and openings in concrete become easier with concrete coring techniques.

By now, you must have got yourself acquainted with different methods of testing. So when in quest of a reliable provider of these services, then make sure Concrete Insight is your top choice.