Crack detection for wading-concrete structures using water irrigation and electric heating

Cracking in wading-concrete structures has a worse impact on structural safety compared with conventional concrete structures. The accurate and timely monitoring of crack development plays a significant role in the safety of wading-concrete engineering. The heat-transfer rate near a crack is related to the flow velocity of the fluid in the crack. Based on this, a novel crack-identification method for underwater concrete structures is presented. This method uses water irrigation to generate seepage at the interface of a crack; then, the heat-dissipation rate in the crack area will increase because of the convective heat-transfer effect near the crack. Crack information can be identified by monitoring the cooling law and leakage flow near cracks. The proposed mobile crack-monitoring system consists of a heating system, temperature-measurement system, and irrigation system. A series of tests was conducted on a reinforced-concrete beam using this system. The crack-discrimination index ψ was defined, according to the subsection characteristics of the heat-source cooling curve. The effects of the crack width, leakage flow, and relative positions of the heat source and crack on ψ were studied. The results showed that the distribution characteristics of ψ along the monitoring line could accurately locate the crack, but not quantify the crack width. However, the leakage flow is sensitive to the crack width and can be used to identify it.