Hall, R.; Stumpf, A.; Baji, A.; Ross, R.; Barnett, D. Characterising Penetrometer Tip Contact during Concrete Condition Assessment. Sensors2022, 22, 737.
Hall, R.; Stumpf, A.; Baji, A.; Ross, R.; Barnett, D. Characterising Penetrometer Tip Contact during Concrete Condition Assessment. Sensors 2022, 22, 737.
Hall, R.; Stumpf, A.; Baji, A.; Ross, R.; Barnett, D. Characterising Penetrometer Tip Contact during Concrete Condition Assessment. Sensors2022, 22, 737.
Hall, R.; Stumpf, A.; Baji, A.; Ross, R.; Barnett, D. Characterising Penetrometer Tip Contact during Concrete Condition Assessment. Sensors 2022, 22, 737.
Abstract
Concrete condition assessing penetrometers need to be able to distinguish between making contact with a hard (concrete) surface as opposed to a semi-solid (corroded concrete) surface. If a hard surface is mistaken for a soft surface, concrete corrosion may be over-estimated, with the potential for triggering unnecessary remediation works. Unfortunately, the variably-angled surface of a concrete pipe can cause the tip of a force-sensing tactile penetrometer to slip and thus to make this mistake. We investigated whether different shaped tips of a cylindrical penetrometer were better than others at maintaining contact with concrete and not slipping. We designed a range of simple symmetric tip shapes, controlled by a single superellipse parameter. We performed a finite element analysis of these parametric models in SolidWorks before machining in stainless steel. We tested our penetrometer tips on a concrete paver cut to four angles at 20∘ increments. The results indicate that penetrometers with a squircle-shaped steel tip (a=b=1,n=4) have the least slip, in the context of concrete condition assessment.
Keywords
concrete; remote sensing; remaining life assessment; condition assessment
Subject
Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
