Civil Engineering Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-2026
Abstract
This research investigates different nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods to assess concrete under alkali-silica reaction (ASR) development. Four methods including acoustic emission (AE), ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), crack width measurement, and strain measurement were applied to reactive and control specimens under accelerated ASR conditioning. The innovation lies in using NDE methods to monitor concrete with varying aggregate sizes, quantifying method sensitivity through measured indices, and highlighting the effectiveness of each method to capture ASR development. The results indicate that the unconfined reactive fine-aggregate sample exhibited isotropic expansion, while coarse-aggregate specimens showed around 50 % greater longitudinal expansion and AE cumulative signal strength up to 3.2 times higher. Furthermore, the reinforcing effect was more significant in the reactive coarse aggregate samples compared to the reactive fine aggregate ones. The ASR detection effectiveness for the four methods is 67 % for AE, 51 % for strain measurement, 12 % for crack width measurement, and 1 % for UPV.
Recommended Citation
Ai, Li, David Bianco, Vafa Soltangharaei, Rafal Anay, Mahmoud Bayat, and Paul Ziehl. "Evaluating the Impact of Aggregate Size and Reinforcement on Alkali-Silica Reaction in Concrete through Nondestructive Testing Techniques." Developments in the Built Environment (2025): 100824. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dibe.2025.100824
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Publication Title
Developments in the Built Environment
DOI
10.1016/j.dibe.2025.100824
Comments
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/