Ultrasonic tomography for reinforced concrete inspection using algebraic reconstruction technique with Iterative Kaczmarz method

Non-destructive testing for evaluating the safety and quality of concrete structures is highly needed in the field of construction and civil engineering. The imaging of concrete structures is still, however, considered to be a very challenging task due to the non-homogeneous properties of the material. In order to address this challenge, this paper presents a non-destructive testing method using ultrasonic wave to identify the internal structure of a concrete sample. A combination of signal smoothing and threshold method was used as signal processing tool for interpreting and analyzing the ultrasonic waveform from the concrete sample. The Algebraic Reconstruction Technique with Iterative Kaczmarz method was then applied as the image reconstruction algorithm. The results from our experiment show that the ultrasonic tomography based on the Iterative Kaczmarz method successfully distinguish embedded steel rod from the rest of materials in the concrete. This paper thus illustrate the proven reliable of the proposed method for testing concrete structures.