Ultrasonic computed tomography-based internal-defect detection and location of underwater concrete piers

Concrete piers are the key load-bearing components of wading bridges. Most detection equipment and methods focus on the surface defects of underwater piers, whereas the detection methods of internal defects are very deficient. This study proposes an ultrasonic computed tomography method combining linear travel time interpolation and simultaneous iterative reconstruction techniques for detecting internal defects in underwater concrete piers. The two-dimensional median filtering and self-organizing feature map are utilized to post-process tomographic images and the confidence approach is employed to detect defects. The efficacy of the proposed method is validated through numerical simulation and underwater experiments, respectively. The Comsol Multiphysics is utilized to simulate the two-dimensional random aggregate model of the concrete and internal defects are added to validate the method’s effectiveness from a mesoscopic perspective. Then actual scale piers containing embedded defects are cast and detected. The results demonstrate that the method can identify and locate internal defects in numerical simulations and practical tests. The numerical simulation experiments results are superior to those of scale concrete specimens. In addition, underwater concrete piers with larger internal defects, square holes, and no steel reinforcements tend to have better detection results.