Lamb wave inspection of concrete beams

The feasibility of detecting defects in concrete beams using Lamb waves is investigated in this paper. The traditional ultrasonic methods for inspecting defects in concrete use the reflection and scattering of longitudinal waves by internal defects. Signal amplitude and time of flight measurements provide information about the internal defects in concrete. However, these methods are time consuming and often fail to detect honeycombs, closed cracks and small defects. In this paper the potential of the Lamb wave technique to detect those defects in large concrete beams is investigated. The Lamb wave technique is found to be reliable for detecting such defects in concrete beams.