Detection of Cracks in Concrete Structure Using Microwave Imaging Technique

Cracks in concrete or cement based materials present a great threat to any civil structures; they are very dangerous and have caused a lot of destruction and damage. Even small cracks that look insignificant can grow and may eventually lead to severe structural failure. Besides manual inspection that is ineffective and time-consuming, several nondestructive evaluation techniques have been used for crack detection such as ultrasonic technique, vibration technique, and strain-based technique; however, some of the sensors used are either too large in size or limited in resolution. A high resolution microwave imaging technique with ultrawideband signal for crack detection in concrete structures is proposed. A combination of the delay-and-sum beamformer with full-view mounted antennas constitutes the image reconstruction algorithm. Various anomaly scenarios in cement bricks were simulated using FDTD, constructed, and measured in the lab. The reconstructed images showed a high similarity between the simulation and the experiment with a resolution of λ/14 which enables a detection of cracks as small as 5 mm in size.