ABSTRACT
Non-destructive (NDT) and partially destructive (PDT) tests are conducted for assessing present health of reinforced concrete structures. An improved understanding from this is possible by the judicious fusion of NDT and PDT results. Though international standards provide guidelines for NDT/PDT, a scientific approach for the selection of NDT/PDT locations is missing from literature. The selection of location is particularly critical for PDT, because of their limited number, additional distress to the structure and higher costs. Quantitative decision criteria for maximising the information collected through NDT/PDT, while incorporating constraints of cost, accessibility, functional restrictions and criticality of locations can be very useful. The proposed approach attempts to capture the actual spatial variability of concrete strength through judicious choice of NDT locations, executed under multiple constraints. This is subsequently augmented with Bayesian updating for the selection of PDT locations, based on the prior knowledge of deterioration and NDT results. The proposed approach is demonstrated with case studies.
