Application of a Wireless and Contactless Ultrasonic System to Evaluate Optimal Sawcut Time for Concrete Pavements

A recently developed contactless ultrasonic testing scheme is applied to define the optimal saw-cutting time for concrete pavement. The ultrasonic system is improved using wireless data transfer for field applications, and the signal processing and data analysis are proposed to evaluate the modulus of elasticity of early-age concrete. Numerical simulation of leaky Rayleigh wave in joint-half space including air and concrete is performed to demonstrate the proposed data analysis procedure. The hardware and algorithms developed for the ultrasonic system are experimentally validated with a comparison of saw-cutting procedures. In addition, conventional methods for the characterization of early-age concrete, including pin penetration and maturity methods, are applied. The results demonstrated that the developed wireless system presents identical results to the wired system, and the initiation time of leaky Rayleigh wave possibly represents 5% of raveling damage compared to the optimal saw cutting. Further data analysis implies that saw-cutting would be optimally performed at approximately 11.5 GPa elastic modulus of concrete obtained by the wireless and contactless ultrasonic system.