Our Non-Destructive Testing Services in Action

A team of Ryan Biggs | Clark Davis engineers and technicians recently visited a Wastewater Treatment Plant to evaluate in-service existing concrete structures through non-destructive testing.

Starting with simple observation and hammer-soundings, the team identified potential problem areas to dive deeper into the investigation and use some of our in-house non-destructive testing equipment; Surface-Penetrating-Radar (SPR) and Impact Echo (IE). The SPR testing was used to locate embedded items and the presence of voids within the concrete, as well as to measure the concrete thickness where access to the interior of the structure was not feasible. The SPR measures these features by detecting reflections in high-frequency radio waves (RADAR) caused when the waves pass through materials with differing wave propagation properties. Follow-up IE testing, a test that uses impact-generated stress (sound) waves to measure the material thickness and to detect cracks, voids, delaminations, or discontinuities in concrete and masonry structures, was conducted to verify SPR results at specific areas of interest.