This article presents an overall examination of how small temperature fluctuations affect P-wave velocity (V_p) measurements and their uncertainties in concrete using embedded piezoelectric transducers. This study highlights the fabrication of custom transducers tailored for long-term concrete monitoring. Accurate and reliable estimation of ultrasonic wave velocities is challenging, since they can be impacted by multiple experimental and environmental factors. In this work, a reliable methodology incorporating correction models is introduced for the quantification of uncertainties in ultrasonic absolute and relative velocity measurements. The study identifies significant influence quantities and suggests uncertainty estimation laws, enhancing measurement accuracy. Determining the onset time of the signal is very time-consuming if the onset is picked manually. After testing various methods to pinpoint the onset time, we selected the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) due to its ability to produce sufficiently reliable results. Then, signal correlation was used to determine the influence of temperature (20 °C to 40 °C) on V_p in different concrete samples. This technique proved effective in evaluating velocity changes, revealing a persistent velocity decrease with temperature increases for various concrete compositions. The study demonstrated the capability of ultrasonic measurements to detect small variations in the state of concrete under the influence of environmental variables like temperature, underlining the importance of incorporating all influencing factors.

A passive data-driven method to localize a defect in a structure using the ambient noise is derived. The approach requires only acoustic measurements in a spatially random noise field and no knowledge of the structure. Measurements are taken before and after the perturbation has occurred and Green's functions are retrieved by cross-correlating acoustic measurements. The difference between measured data reveals the perturbation. A frequency domain method based on matched field processing is then performed to localize the perturbation. The Bartlett, minimum variance and white noise gain constraint processors are implemented and their performances are illustrated on a numerical experiment.

Leaky Lamb waves are proven effective to carry out nondestructive testing especially on parallel and immersed plates. To detect and localize defects in such a set, this work associates for the first time the topological energy method and leaky Lamb waves. This methodology is applied in a single immersed plate to validate its application. Firstly, Lamb mode A1 is generated in the plate, and the reflected waves on the defect are measured. A first case is examined where the edge is considered as a defect to be localized. Then, measurements are taken on a plate where a notch is machined. The measurements are time reversed and reinjected in a finite-element simulation. The results are then correlated with the direct problem of the topological energy method that is also simulated. In both cases, the defects are precisely localized on the energy images. This work is the preliminary step to an application of the topological energy method to a set of two parallel and immersed plates where the research defect is located in the second plate.

This paper presents local non-destructive evaluation of concrete cover by using surface Rayleigh wave in nonlinear Dynamic Acousto-Elasticity (DAE) measurement. Dynamic non classical nonlinear elastic behavior like modulus decrease under applied stress and slow dynamic process has been observed in many varieties of solid, also in concrete. The measurements conducted in laboratory, consist in qualitative evaluation of concrete thermal damage. Nonlinear elastic parameters especially conditioning offset are analyzed for the cover concrete by Rayleigh wave. The results of DAE method show enhanced sensitivity when compared to velocity measurement. Afterward, this technique broadens measurements to the field.