1,721,162 research outputs found

    Cluster algorithm for the evaluation of heterogeneous materials by LIBS

    No full text
    The laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a fast method to provide multi-elemental analysis of any sample. At the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) the LIBS technique is applied on building materials to measure ingress profiles of harmful species like chloride and alkalis. The ingress depth and the quantitative amount is important for the evaluation of the potential for damage processes like the alkali-silica reaction or chloride-induced corrosion. Concrete as an example is a highly heterogeneous material with 1/7 cement (major component CaO) and 6/7 aggregates (SiO2) with different grain sizes. Due to a scanning procedure a two dimensional element distribution of a concrete surface can be measured. In order to have an automated Separation method to evaluate heterogeneous materials, different cluster algorithm have been tested. Best results have been achieved with the Expectation-Maximization-Algorithm (EM-Algorithm)

    Practical application of Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy for determination of the chloride content in concrete structures

    No full text
    The relevance of chloride measurements in practice for durability condition assessment and a description of the working principle of LIBS will be given. A comparison of chloride profiles obtained by the common wet chemical analysis and results from LIBS measurements are shown to demonstrate the accuracy of the LIBS-technique. In addition, an example on the extra information resulting from measurements performed with LIBS for improvement of condition assessment and prediction will be shown

    2D evaluation of heterogenous building materials using cluster algorithm

    No full text
    In civil engineering the information about the quantitative ingress of harmful species like Cl⁻, Na⁺ and SO²⁻₄ is of great interest to evaluate the remaining life time of structures. These species are triggering different damage processes like the alkali-silica reaction (ASR) or the chloride-induced corrosion of the reinforcement. For the evaluation of the heterogeneous concrete it is necessary to discriminate between the different phases mainly cement matrix and aggregates. The transport processes are only proceeding in the cement matrix therefore the measured concentrations should be regarded to the cement content. For the 2D evaluation of element distributions different multivariate cluster-algorithms like k-means and Expectation-Maximization-algorithm (EM-algorithm) have been tested. The methods are compared and different figures of merit will be presented. After phase separation non-relevant information of the aggregates can be excluded. The ingress of harmful species is then quantified using chemometrics. Due to concrete cores from a parking deck the methods have been validated and verified with standard methods of wet-chemistry
    corecore