A combined ultrasound method applied to high performance concrete with silica fume

The use of ultrasonic relative amplitude ratio (RAR) and ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) to evaluate the strength of high performance concrete (HPC) with 10%, 20% and 30% silica fume content at water/binder ratios from 0.22 to 0.40 with different curing conditions is presented in this paper. As the composition, maturity, free water content and curing conditions are factors that influence the strength of concrete, their effect on the measured UPV and the RAR are determined. Results show that UPV measurement is less sensitive at high level of strength but has good correlation with the compressive strength of HPC with silica fume, whereas RAR maintain good sensitivity at all level of strength (irrespective of the factors that influence the strength) with reduced correlation coefficient. The suggested combined UPV and RAR-strength correlation can be used to estimate the compressive strength of HPC with silica fume and can be combined with other nondestructive testing methods for better estimation of strength.