Flexural cracks are common in reinforced concrete (RC) beams. At service loads, the tensile stresses induced by the bending moments cause beam sections to crack, leading to loss of stiffness and a consequent increase in beam deflections. Serviceability limit states in RC beam design include maximum deflection and maximum crack widths.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ultrasonic tomography is an important tool in nondestructive evaluation of concrete structures. It is usual to consider in ultrasonic reconstruction that the mechanical waves only propagate in straight-lines between the transmitter and the receiver transducers, corresponding to the behavior in a homogenous material. In a concrete specimen, however, mechanical waves may deviate from an internal flaw, which affects the resulting tomograms.
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