Concrete is the material most produced by humanity. Its popularity is mainly based on its low production cost and great structural design flexibility. Its operational and ambient loadings including environmental effects have a great impact in the performance and overall cost of concrete structures. Thus, the quality control, the structural assessment, the maintenance and the reliable prolongation of the operational service life of the existing concrete structures have become a major issue. In the recent years, non-destructive testing (NDT) is becoming increasingly essential for reliable and affordable quality control and integrity assessment not only during the construction of new concrete structures, but also for the existing ones. Choosing the right inspection technique is always followed by a compromise between its performance and cost. In the present paper, the ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) method, which is the most well known and widely accepted ultrasonic concrete NDT method, is thoroughly reviewed and compared with other well-established NDT approaches. Their principles, inherent limitations and reliability are reviewed. In addition, while the majority of the current UPV techniques are based on the use of piezoelectric transducers held on the surface of the concrete, special attention is paid to a very promising technique using low-cost and aggregate-size piezoelectric transducers embedded in the material. That technique has been evaluated based on a series of parameters, such as the ease of use, cost, reliability and performance.

Concrete is still the leading structural material due to its low production cost and great structural design flexibility. Although it is distinguished by such a high durability and compressive strength, it is vulnerable in a series of ambient and operational degradation factors which all too frequently result in crack formation that can adversely affect its mechanical performance. The autonomous healing system, using encapsulated polyurethane-based, expansive, healing agent embedded in concrete, is triggered by the crack formation and propagation and promises material repair and operational service life extension. As shown in our previous studies, the formed cracks on small-scale concrete beams are sealed and repaired by filling them with the healing agent. In the present study, the crack formation and propagation in autonomously healed, large-scale concrete beams are thoroughly monitored through a combination of non-destructive testing (NDT) methods. The ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), using embedded low-cost and aggregate-size piezoelectric transducers, the acoustic emission (AE) and the digital image correlation (DIC) are the NDT methods which are comprehensively used. The integrated ultrasonic, acoustic and optical monitoring system introduces an experimental configuration that detects and locates the four-point bending mode fracture on large-scale concrete beams, detects the healing activation process and evaluates the subsequent concrete repair.