Assessment of local damage level in engineered cementitious composites (ECC) using stress wave propagation

Abstract

Non-destructive tests using impact echo (IE) and pulse velocity measurements (PVM) were conducted to evaluate degradation of elastic properties of cement-based materials during uniaxial compression. Prismatic specimens (100X100X200 mm) made of ECC (engineered cementitious composites) mixture, were used for the test. The specimens were subjected to monotonic axial loading until failure while resonance frequency and travel time were recorded. Changes in the amplitude, velocity, and frequency were correlated to the increasing damage levels and the feasibility of IE and PVM techniques to evaluate the damage level in ECC was preliminarily assessed.