Abstract
The interlayer bond is one of the primary qualities assessed during an inspection of floor concrete workmanship. The measure of this bond is the value of pull-off adhesion f b determined in practice by the pull-off method. The drawback of this method is that the tested floor is damaged in each of the test points and then needs to be repaired. This drawback can be overcome by developing a way which will make it possible to test floors in any point without damaging them locally. In this paper it is proposed to evaluate the pull-off adhesion of the top layer to the base layer in concrete floors by means of the radial basis function (RBF) artificial neural network using the parameters evaluated by the non-destructive acoustic impulse response technique and the non-destructive optical laser triangulation method. Presented RBF neural network model is useful tool in the non-destructive evaluation of the pull-off adhesion of concrete floor layers without the need to damage the top layer fragment from the base.
Highlights
One of the serious defects occurring in floors is the lack of adhesion at the base layer/top layer interface (Błaszczynski et al 2006; Łowinska-Kluge, Błaszczynski 2012)
The experimental and numerical test results presented in this paper show that the radial basis function (RBF) neural network with a properly matched structure and training algorithm is suitable for the non-destructive identification of pulloff adhesion fc,b of the top layer to the base layer in concrete floors on the basis of parameters nondestructively evaluated using the optical laser triangulation method and the acoustic impulse response technique
The values of this adhesion can be reliably identified by the RBF neural network on the basis of the total of five parameters determined by the nondestructive methods
Summary
One of the serious defects occurring in floors is the lack of adhesion at the base layer/top layer interface (Błaszczynski et al 2006; Łowinska-Kluge, Błaszczynski 2012). According to Czarnecki and Chmielewska (2005) and Łukowski (2005), the main factors determining the level of adhesion proper are: the compressive strength of the base concrete and the latter’s temperature and moisture content. The physical properties of the materials which are to be joined, such as viscosity, wettability, bond shrinkage, thermal expansion and elastic modulus are vital. It is the development of the contacting surfaces, the porosity of the substrate and the presence of microcracks in the latter which have the greatest influence on the level of mechanical adhesion. According to Piotrowski (2009), mechanical adhesion has the decisive influence on the quality of the bond between concrete layers
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