No description available.

<p>Aging public infrastructure in North America continues to challenge engineers and scientists to develop repair and rehabilitation strategies that are practical, durable and cost effective. Of specific interest is the state of concrete and concrete repair in buildings and civil engineering infrastructures that are in deteriorating condition. In particular, cracks pose a threat to the durability and ultimately the structural integrity of concrete. Cracks in concrete may form for several reasons, e.g. plastic shrinkage, thermal contraction, mechanical loading or as a result of overloading. Once formed, cracks present a combination of problems to the service life and performance of the structure. Therefore cracks must be repaired for the following reasons: to prevent the ingress of deleterious agents such as water, other liquids, vapour, gas, chemicals and biological agents; to either restore or increase the structural load-bearing capacity of the cracked concrete member; to restore the aesthetic condition of the structure.</p> <p>The effectiveness of two different repair methods, crack injections and cementitious overlays, were examined. Two repair materials, a low viscosity epoxy and polyurethane were injected into the cracks, and a thin polymer-modified cementious overlay was applied on the cracked surface. Two types of cement were used, an ordinary Portland cement and a blended cement with 8% silica fume. The specimen properties were evaluated using non-destructive testing, prior to being subjected to a series of freeze-thaw conditioning regimes. From the experimental program, it was determined that the epoxy injection repair was more effective in restoring the air tightness than the thin overlay. The polyurethane material was unsuccessful. Following the freeze-thaw regimes, an overall improvement of conditions for all three repairs was observed, with the cementitious overlay seeing the greatest improvement in air tightness. These results indicate that the on-going cement hydration mechanism had a greater effect on the performance in comparison to the deleterious effects of the environmental loads.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Antes de utilizar as toras de madeira como elemento estrutural é necessário avaliar as propriedades mecânicas desse material tanto por inspeção visual quanto por ensaio mecânico. A técnica de vibração transversal tem se destacado entre os demais métodos de Avaliação Não-Destrutiva para madeira serrada por obter estimativas acuradas do módulo de elasticidade à flexão. Contudo, testes prévios com essa técnica evidenciaram dificuldades de empregá-la na avaliação a rigidez à flexão de toras. O objetivo deste trabalho foi propor um método de ensaio para estimar o módulo de elasticidade na flexão de toras de madeira por meio de vibração transversal. O método proposto foi testado e validado em uma amostra de 40 toras de Eucalyptus sp. Foram obtidas boas correlações entre o módulo de elasticidade estático e o módulo de elasticidade dinâmico obtido pelo ensaio de vibração transversal. / Before using the wood logs as a structural element is necessary to evaluate the mechanical properties of this material by visual inspection and mechanical testing. The transverse vibration technique has stood out among the other methods of Non-Destructive Evaluation for lumber to obtain accurate estimates of the bending modulus of elasticity. However, previous tests showed difficulties with this technique to use it to evaluate the bending stiffness of logs. The aim of this work is to propose a test method to estimate the bending modulus of elasticity of wood logs by means of transverse vibration. The proposed method was tested and validated on a sample of 40 logs of Eucalyptus sp. It was obtained good correlation between the static bending and dynamic modulus of elasticity obtained by transverse vibration test.

In the nanoscale metrology industry, there is a need for low-cost instruments, which have the ability to probe the structrure and elemental composition of thin films. This dissertation, describes the research performed to design and simulate a miniature Cylindrical Mirror Analyzer, (CMA), and Auger Electron Spectrometer, (AES). The CMA includes an integrated coaxial thermionic electron source. Electron optics simulations were performed using the Finite Element Method, (FEM), software COMSOL. To address the large Secondary Electron, (SE), noise, inherent in AES spectra, this research also included experiments to create structures in materials, which were intended to suppress SE backgound noise in the CMA. Laser Beam Machining, (LBM), of copper substrates was used to create copper pillars with very high surface areas, which were designed to supress SE’s. The LBM was performed with a Lumera SUPER RAPID‐HE model Neodymium Vanadate laser. The laser has a peak output power of 30 megawatts, has a 5x lens and a spot size of 16 μm. The laser wavelength is in the infrared at 1064 nm, a pulse width of 15 picoseconds, and pulse repetition rate up to 100 kHz. The spectrometer used in this research is intended for use when performing chemical analysis of the surface of bulk materials and thin films. It is applicable for metrology of thin films, as low as 0.4 nm in thickness, without the need to perform destructive sample thinning, which is required in Scanning Tranmission Electron Microscopy, (STEM). The spectrometer design is based on the well known and widely used coaxial cylinder capacitor design known as the Cylindrical Mirror Analyzer, (CMA). The coaxial tube arrangement of the CMA allows for placing an electron source,which is mounted in the center of the inner cylinder of the spectrometer. Simulation of the electron source with an Einzel Lens was also performed. In addtion, experiments with thin film coatings and Laser Beam Machining to supress Secondary Electron emission noise within the Auger electron spectrum were completed. Design geometry for the miniature CMA were modeled using Computer Aided Design, (CAD). Fixed Boundary Conditions, (BC), were applied and the geometry was then meshed for FEM. The electrostatic potential was then solved using the Poisson equation at each point. Having found the solution to the electrostatic potentials, electron flight simulations were performed and compared with the analytical solution. From several commercially available FEM modeling packages, COMSOL Multiphysics was chosen as the research platform for modeling of the spectrometer design. The CMA in this design was reduced in size by a factor of 4 to 5. This enabled mounting the CMA on a 2 ¾ in flange compared to the commercial PHI model 660 CMA which mounts onto a 10 in flange. Results from the Scanning Electron Microscopy measurements of the Secondary Electron emission characteristics of the LBM electron suppressor will also be presented.

No description available.

Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse contribuent au développement du contrôle non destructif des conduits de précontrainte extérieure dans les ouvrages d'art. Une sonde capacitive a été développée pour ausculter ces conduits. L'objectif est d'en améliorer le diagnostic.Dans un premier temps, une cellule de mesure en transmission coaxiale a été développée pour caractériser les matériaux présents dans le conduit sur la bande de fréquence 50 MHz - 1 GHz. Le ciment, les produits de la ségrégation du ciment et la cire d'injection ont été étudiés.La deuxième partie du travail exploite ces résultats dans une modélisation directe du problème global. Une étude paramétrique nous a permis de proposer une méthode d'estimation de l'épaisseur de vide à l'intérieur du conduit à partir des signaux délivrés par la sonde, qui a pu être validée sur une maquette de conduit. A partir de ces résultats sont proposées plusieurs améliorations du dispositif visant à l'obtention de signaux plus riches issus des capteurs, afin de pouvoir estimer un plus grand nombre de paramètres. / The work presented in this report contributes to the development of Non Destructive Evaluation of the external post-tensioned ducts in bridges. A capacitive probe has been developed for bridge monitoring applications. The aim of this work is to improve its diagnostic.In a first step, a coaxial transmission line was developed to characterize the materials involved in the duct over the frequency range 50 MHz - 1 GHz. The cement grout, segregation products of the cement grout and the injection wax were studied.In the second part of this work the previous results are used in the modelling of the devices. A parametrical study has shown the ability to get from the signals an estimate of the thickness of the void in the duct. This estimation method has been validated using a laboratory duct. Further, several improvements of the probes are proposed to get signals containing more information in order to get a better estimation of the target parameters.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:07:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 AnaPPF_DISSERT.pdf: 3895025 bytes, checksum: 139d5ed551d6922e5b7f6e67a16602fd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-09-06 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico / Polymer matrix composites offer advantages for many applications due their combination of properties, which includes low density, high specific strength and modulus of elasticity and corrosion resistance. However, the application of non-destructive techniques using magnetic sensors for the evaluation these materials is not possible since the materials are non-magnetizable. Ferrites are materials with excellent magnetic properties, chemical stability and corrosion resistance. Due to these properties, these materials are promising for the development of polymer composites with magnetic properties. In this work, glass fiber / epoxy circular plates were produced with 10 wt% of cobalt or barium ferrite particles. The cobalt ferrite was synthesized by the Pechini method. The commercial barium ferrite was subjected to a milling process to study the effect of particle size on the magnetic properties of the material. The characterization of the ferrites was carried out by x-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission gun scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM) and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). Circular notches of 1, 5 and 10 mm diameter were introduced in the composite plates using a drill bit for the non-destructive evaluation by the technique of magnetic flux leakage (MFL). The results indicated that the magnetic signals measured in plates with barium ferrite without milling and cobalt ferrite showed good correlation with the presence of notches. The milling process for 12 h and 20 h did not contribute to improve the identification of smaller size notches (1 mm). However, the smaller particle size produced smoother magnetic curves, with fewer discontinuities and improved signal-to-noise ratio. In summary, the results suggest that the proposed approach has great potential for the detection of damage in polymer composites structures / Materiais comp?sitos polim?ricos oferecem vantagens para v?rias aplica??es pela combina??o de propriedades como baixa densidade, elevada resist?ncia mec?nica e m?dulo de elasticidade espec?ficos e resist?ncia a corros?o. Entretanto, por n?o serem magnetiz?veis, esses materiais n?o permitem a utiliza??o de t?cnicas de avalia??o n?o destrutivas que utilizem sensores magn?ticos. Ferritas s?o materiais com excelentes propriedades magn?ticas, estabilidade qu?mica e resist?ncia ? corros?o. Devido a essas propriedades esses materiais s?o promissores para o desenvolvimento de comp?sitos de matriz polim?rica com propriedades magn?ticas. Neste trabalho, discos de comp?sitos de fibra de vidro/ep?xi foram produzidos com adi??o de 10% em massa de part?culas de ferrita de cobalto ou de b?rio. A ferrita de cobalto foi sintetizada pelo m?todo Pechini. A ferrita comercial de b?rio foi submetida a um processo de moagem para se estudar o efeito do tamanho de part?cula nas propriedades magn?ticas do material. A caracteriza??o das ferritas foi realizada pelas t?cnicas de difra??o de raio x (DRX), microscopia eletr?nica de varredura (MEV-FEG) e magnetometria de amostra vibrante (MAV). Entalhes circulares com di?metros de 1, 5 e 10 mm foram introduzidos nos discos de comp?sitos com o aux?lio de uma broca para avalia??o n?o-destrutiva por meio da t?cnica de fuga de fluxo magn?tico (MFL). A abordagem apresentada permitiu identificar todos os entalhes introduzidos nos discos. Os resultados indicaram que os sinais magn?ticos medidos nos discos com a ferrita de b?rio sem moagem e de cobalto apresentaram boa correla??o com a presen?a dos entalhes. O processo de moagem por 12 h e 20 h n?o contribuiu para a melhor identifica??o de entalhes de menor dimens?o (1 mm). Entretanto, o menor tamanho de part?cula permitiu produzir curvas magn?ticas mais suaves, com menos descontinuidades e melhor rela??o sinal-ru?do. Em resumo, os resultados sugerem que a abordagem proposta tem grande potencial para a detec??o de falhas em estruturas de materiais comp?sitos polim?ricos

[pt] É notório que a resistência global de uma estrutura composta por várias camadas coladas depende diretamente da qualidade da adesão entre as mesmas. Imperfeições ao longo das interfaces de adesão comprometem significativamente a performance da estrutura. A caracterização não destrutiva destas imperfeições é geralmente tarefa muito difícil. O principal objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar um método analítico-numérico que permite modelar o campo acústico resultante da interação entre ondas ultra-sônicas e interfaces imperfeitas, auxiliando na escolha de parâmetros para o emprego de métodos ultra-sônicos de inspeção. No trabalho, a aproximação quase-estática, proposta por Thompson em meados da década de oitenta,é combinada com o método das perturbações para a modelagem de defeitos localizados ao longo da camada de adesão. O método desenvolvido admite que as camadas sejam feitas de materiais anisotrópicos, e permite a modelagem em altas frequências. Três simulações são apresentadas para exemplificar a aplicação do método. Resultados destas simulações onde feixes ultra-sônicos são incidentes em placas imersas em água revelam frequências e ângulos de incidência para os quais efeitos de espalhamento, que permitem a caracterização de defeitos localizados, são mais significativos. / [en] It is well known that the global strength of multi-layered composite structures strongly depends on the quality of the adhesion between its constituent elements. Imperfections along interfaces of adhesion can strongly compromise structure s performance. The characterization of such defects is a very difficult task. The main goal of this study is the development of an analytic-numerical method to simulate the acoustic field resulting from the interaction between ultrasonic waves and imperfect interfaces, helping in selection of parameters for ultra-sonic inspecting methods. The Quasistatic-approximation (QSA), introduced by Thompson in 1982, is applied together with the perturbation method to allow modelling of interfacial localized aws. A solution algorithm for the problem is developed with the aid of the invariant embedding method. It is applicable to solve wave propagation problems in arbitrarily anisotropic layered plates and it is stable for high frequencies. Three simulations of multi-layered plates immersed in acoustic uid are presented as illustration of the application of the developed method. Results of those simulations indicate the frequencies and angles of incidence where the scattering effects, which allow the characterization of localized defects, are more significant.

Nous proposons une nouvelle procédure de mesure permettant de tracer la courbe de résistivité en fonction de l'écartement électrode de courant-électrode de potentiel relié à la profondeur d'investigation et au gradient de teneur en eau. Les mesures de résistivité au droit des armatures sont réalisées et une procédure d'inversion permettant de remonter au gradient de résistivité est mise en place. Deux types de mesures ont été effectués expérimentalement, sur des dalles en béton armé et non armée. Deux types de gradient sont étudiés : le séchage et l'humidification. La présence de l'armature diminue significativement la résistivité à cause d'un effet de court-circuit. Les mesures montrent l'intérêt de la procédure pour l'étude du gradient de teneur en eau. Pour la partie numérique la simulation a montré que la mesure de résistivité permet effectivement de déterminer le gradient de résistivité et de définir les paramètres électrochimiques de l'acier via le modèle de Butler-Volmer. / We propose a new measurement procedure that allows drawing a resistivity curve as a function of the spacing between current electrode and potential electrode which is linked to the investigation depth and the water content gradient. The resistivity measurements above the rebars are performed and an inversion procedure to assess the resistivity gradient is carried out. For the experimental part two kinds of measurement are performed on concrete slabs (reinforced and unreinforced). Two gradient types are studied: drying and wetting. The presence of the reinforcement significantly decreases the measurement of the resistivity. The measurements show the interest of the proposed procedure for the study of the water content gradient. Two measurement results were considered in numerical analyses. The simulation shows that it is possible to assess the resistivity gradient and the electrochemical parameters of the rebar via the Butler-Volmer model.

Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse s’appliquent à la caractérisation de propriétés mécaniques par la microscopie acoustique. Ils décrivent un capteur focalisé innovant qui autorise à la fois une topographie et une imagerie quantitative d’un matériau élastique. L’innovation consiste en la séparation des différents modes de propagation d’un matériau excité par une sonde focalisée multiélément. La mesure par temps de vol de la vitesse de propagation des modes de surfaces de matériaux élastiques et anisotropes offre une possibilité de quantification du module caractérisant l’élasticité : le module de Young. Le dimensionnement de la sonde multiélément qui est décrit ici est rendu possible grâce au développement d’un modèle de champs acoustiques permettant d’anticiper le champ rayonné par chaque élément. Un deuxième modèle traitant de l’étude temporel des signaux reçus par la sonde focalisée est aussi présenté pour vérifier le comportement discriminant de la sonde des différentes ondes pouvant se propager. La mesure de propriétés mécaniques par la sonde focalisée est appliquée à différents échantillons et propose des résultats cohérents avec une grande sensibilité. La possibilité de réaliser des images de propriétés mécaniques est ainsi démontrée. D’abord adaptée pour des fréquences de l’ordre de la trentaine de mégahertz, cette sonde possède un nombre limité d’éléments pour assurer une simplicité de conception et de fabrication permettant par la suite une miniaturisation du capteur pour atteindre des fréquences proches du gigahertz. / The work presented in this thesis is applied to the characterization of mechanical properties by acoustic microscopy. It describes an innovative focused sensor that enables both topography and quantitative imaging of an elastic material. The innovation consists in the separation of the different propagation modes of a material excited by a focused multielement probe. Measuring the surface mode propagation velocity of elastic and anisotropic materials thanks to their time of flight provides a possibility of quantifying the module characterizing the elasticity: the Young's modulus. The dimensions of the multielement probe are described here and rely on an acoustic field model developed to anticipate the field radiated by each element. A second model studies the temporal behaviour of the focused probe and also verifies the discrimination of the different waves that propagate. The measurement of mechanical properties by the multielement probe is applied to different samples and provides consistent results with high sensitivity. The ability to produce images of mechanical properties is thus demonstrated. First suitable for frequencies near thirty megahertz, this sensor has a limited number of elements to ensure a simplicity of design and manufacture for a subsequent miniaturization of the sensor to achieve frequencies near the gigahertz.