- Author
-
Clifton, J. R.
|
Carino, N. J.
|
Howdyshell, P.
- Title
- In-Place Nondestructive Evaluation Methods for quality Assurance of Building Materials.
- Coporate
- Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, Champaign, IL
- Report
-
CERL-TR-M-305
March 1982
81 p.
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22161. Telephone: 1-800-553-6847 or 703-605-6000; Fax: 703-605-6900. Website: http://www.ntis.gov
- Keywords
-
building materials
- Identifiers
- Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) methods
- Abstract
- At U.S. Army Corps of Engineers job sites, the Resident Engineer must determine that the building contractor has followed proper construction practices. In addition, the Resident Engineer must make sure that the in-place building materials and components are acceptable. The quality and uniformity of these materials depend on many processes. For example, the standard practice for checking the quality of concrete includes measuring the slump, air content, and unit weight of plastic concrete, and the compressive strength of standard cylinders. However, these tests often do not reliably predict the quality of in-place concrete. The standard practice for checking the quality of in-place hardened concrete is to drill cores, which are examined and tested in a laboratory. This is time-consuming and expensive. An inspector encounters similar difficulties in assessing the quality and uniformity of other building materials. Often these problems can be overcome by using nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods to inspect in-place materials. Since many types of NDE technology are available, the Office of the Chief of Engineers has asked the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory to summarize, for easy reference, the various methods of determining that proper quality control has been performed. Some of the methods described in this report cause cosmetic damage to the material being inspected; e.g., methods.the Windsor Probe and cast-in-place pullout However, since the service life of the material is not affected, and the slight damage can be easily repaired, such methods are still considered nondestructive. Objective The objectives of this study are: (1) to identify NDE methods which can help the Resident Engineer's staff assure the quality and uniformity of in-place materials; and (2) to develop guidelines to assist inspectors in selecting appropriate NDE methods.