Nondestructive evaluation of notched cracks in mortars by nonlinear ultrasonic technique

In this paper, a nonlinear ultrasonic technique is used to nondestructively characterise concentrated defects in cement-based materials. Cracks are artificially notched in mortar samples and five different crack widths are used to simulate increased damage of samples. The relative ratio of second harmonic amplitude to the square of fundamental ultrasonic signal amplitude is defined as the damage indicator of the nonlinear ultrasonic technique, which is measured for mortar samples in conjunction with a typical linear nondestructive evaluation parameter – ultrasonic pulse velocity. It is found that both linear and nonlinear damage parameters have a good correlation with the change of crack width, while the nonlinearity parameter shows a better sensitivity to the width increase. In addition, the nonlinearity parameter presents an exponential increase with the crack growth, indicating an accelerating nonlinear ultrasonic response of materials to increased internal damage in the late phase. The results demonstrate that the nonlinear ultrasonic technique based on the second harmonic principle keeps the high sensitivity to the isolated cracks in cement-based materials, similarly to the case of distributed cracks in previous studies. The developed technique could thus be a useful experimental tool for the assessment of concentrated damage of concrete structures.