Digital reconstruction of a concrete pile from temperature data and boundary element formulation

Abstract

This paper presents an application of the boundary element method (BEM) in engineering to numerically analyse the integrity of cast-in-place concrete foundations, as in the case of concrete piles, using a developed system composed of an artificial heat source, thermometers coupled with metal reinforcement and mathematical algorithms. This type of integrity monitoring of concrete piles is present in recent articles where temperature measurements occur only during the cement curing process, related to the cement hydration reaction in a time interval of a few days. However, the innovation proposed in this study refers to the possibility of continuous monitoring of the pile, considering the installation of an artificial heat source, whose temperature measurements will allow evaluating the positioning of the metal reinforcement inside the pile, in order to identify possible concreting anomalies and/or exposure of metal rods to the ground, where metal corrosion can be more pronounced. The diffusion equation with heat generation and the D-BEM formulation is used to simulate a cross-section of the set of soil and concrete pile with metal reinforcement in different situations. Details on the formulation of boundary elements used, as well as numerical results on the feasibility of the methodology developed to monitor the integrity of cast-in-place concrete foundations, are presented below.