Microwave NDT of cement-based materials using far-field reflection coefficients

Periodic assessment of ageing civil structures is important for structural integrity and public safety. Numerous destructive and non-destructive techniques employing different energy sources have been proposed for structural health monitoring. Amongst the non-destructive evaluation techniques proposed for monitoring material strength and contents of concrete structures, techniques employing microwaves offer distinct advantages in that they are non-radioactive and provide good penetration, excellent contrast between steel reinforcement bar and concrete, and insensitivity to ambient temperature. In this paper, the feasibility of a far-field microwave NDE technique for concrete imaging is investigated via numerical simulations and experiments on cement based samples using far-field microwave reflection coefficients. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.