A Non-Destructive Electromagnetic Sensing Technique to Determine Chloride Level in Maritime Concrete
Goran Omer, Patryk Kot, William Atherton, Magomed Muradov, Michaela Gkantou, Andy Shaw, Michael W. Riley, Khalid Hashim, A. I. Al-Shamma’a
Abstract
Deterioration of concrete due to the corrosion of reinforcement is a serious durability problem faced by the construction industry. This study aims to develop a non-destructive and real-time technique to monitor the chloride level at an early stage to prevent the development of the reinforcement’s corrosion using electromagnetic spectroscopy. The experimental work was performed on 5 concrete specimens with different chloride levels at three different concrete depths (18, 40, and 70mm) using the sensor system (2-12GHz frequency range) and a chlorometer. The LM algorithm was selected to develop a prediction model for the detection of chloride ions. The results demonstrated that the proposed technique can predict the chloride level with R2=0.986709 and RMSE =0.000120 at 5.42GHz. The results demonstrate that the sensor can predict the chloride ion content across the range of the investigated concrete depths with the percentage error of 0.034% with respect to the accuracy of the chlorometer.