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Assessment of Polymer Concrete Sample Geometry Effect on Ultrasonic Wave Velocity and Spectral Characteristics
1Department of Building Materials Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Al. Armii Ludowej 16, 00-637 Warsaw, Poland.
Materials (Basel, Switzerland)
|December 10, 2021
Summary
Sample shape and dimensions minimally impact ultrasonic wave velocity in fly ash polymer concrete. Time-frequency analysis offers deeper insights into composite properties than traditional methods.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Civil Engineering
- Polymer Science
Background:
- Polymer concrete, particularly fly ash-based variants, offers sustainable construction material properties.
- Understanding the influence of sample geometry on material characterization techniques is crucial for accurate assessment.
- Ultrasonic testing is a non-destructive method widely used for evaluating concrete quality and integrity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of polymer concrete sample shape and dimensions on ultrasonic wave propagation.
- To determine the variability in ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) based on sample geometry.
- To explore advanced signal processing techniques for enhanced analysis of particulate composites.
Main Methods:
- Fly ash polymer concrete samples of varying shapes (cubes, beams, plates) were prepared using optimized compositions.
- Ultrasonic testing was performed using a direct transmission method with a digital ultrasonic flow detector and 100 kHz transducers.
- Signal analysis included pulse velocity measurements, frequency spectra, and time-frequency spectrograms via Fourier and synchrosqueezing transforms.
Main Results:
- Correlation analysis indicated that neither path length nor lateral dimensions significantly affect ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) variability.
- A slight trend of decreasing UPV with increasing path length was observed.
- Time-frequency domain analysis revealed more pronounced differences related to sample geometry compared to frequency spectra analysis.
Conclusions:
- Sample geometry has a limited statistically significant impact on the ultrasonic pulse velocity in fly ash polymer concrete.
- Time-frequency analysis provides a more sensitive method for characterizing particulate composites, especially when UPV variations are subtle.
- This study highlights the importance of considering advanced signal processing for a comprehensive understanding of material behavior.
Keywords:
Fourier-based synchrosqueezing transformpolymer concretesample shape effectsample size effectultrasonicsupvMore Related Videos
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