Assessment Methods of Fire Damages in Concrete Tunnel Linings

The assessment of fire damage in concrete structures is a complex but intriguing task involving different areas of expertise, from Material Science to Structural Design, from Non-Destructive Testing to Fire Engineering. The problem grows to be even more challenging in the case of tunnels, as a consequence of the high fire severity and the operational difficulties implied by this type of infrastructure, but also because of the pressing time restrictions due to the high cost of traffic disruption during the assessment and repair works. A general overview on this subject is given in the paper, pointing out the different scales of observation, the relevant clues to be analysed at each scale and their appropriate inspection tools. These latter comprise a wide range of investigation techniques of different reliability and cost, but not many of them turn out to be viable and convenient to tackle the problem in question. In this perspective, some innovative assessment methods have been developed in recent years, having in common the ability to reveal the layered structure of fire damaged concrete, the relatively fast and easy implementation and the immediate availability of the results. A brief account on the features and the limitations of these methods is given also, as a tentative to trace some directions for future advances in this important and still open issue.

[1]  Salman Azhar,et al.  Strength and durability recovery of fire-damaged concrete after post-fire-curing , 2001 .

[2]  Martin Krause,et al.  Comparison of pulse-echo methods for testing concrete , 1997 .

[3]  S. Greenhalgh,et al.  CURVED RAYPATH INTERPRETATION OF SEISMIC REFRACTION DATA , 1981 .

[4]  Roberto Felicetti Assessment of Fire Damaged Concrete via the Hammer-Drill Pulse Transmission Technique , 2013 .

[5]  Odile Abraham,et al.  NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTING OF FIRED TUNNEL WALLS: THE MONT-BLANC TUNNEL CASE STUDY , 2003 .

[6]  V. M. Malhotra,et al.  CRC Handbook on Nondestructive Testing of Concrete , 1990 .

[7]  Jeremy P. Ingham,et al.  Application of petrographic examination techniques to the assessment of fire-damaged concrete and masonry structures , 2009 .

[8]  A Leitner,et al.  THE FIRE CATASTROPHE IN THE TAUERN TUNNEL: EXPERIENCE AND CONCLUSIONS FOR THE AUSTRIAN GUIDELINES , 2001 .

[9]  T. Shiotani,et al.  Characterization of surface crack depth and repair evaluation using Rayleigh waves , 2009 .

[10]  Luc Taerwe,et al.  Approaches for the assessment of the residual strength of concrete exposed to fire , 2007 .

[11]  Alain Ehrlacher,et al.  The use of thermal analysis in assessing the effect of temperature on a cement paste , 2005 .

[12]  Ufuk Dilek,et al.  Assessment of Fire Damage to a Reinforced Concrete Structure during Construction , 2007 .

[13]  Jochen H Kurz,et al.  Strategies for reliable automatic onset time picking of acoustic emissions and of ultrasound signals in concrete. , 2005, Ultrasonics.

[14]  Pietro G. Gambarova,et al.  Expertise and assessment of materials and structures after fire , 2008 .

[16]  Fernando A. Branco,et al.  Assessment of concrete structures subjected to fire—the FBTest , 2002 .

[17]  Franz-Josef Ulm,et al.  THE "CHUNNEL" FIRE. II: ANALYSIS OF CONCRETE DAMAGE , 1999 .

[19]  Christian Pichler,et al.  Safety Assessment of Concrete Tunnel Linings under Fire Load , 2006 .

[20]  Alan N. Beard,et al.  The Handbook of Tunnel Fire Safety , 2011 .

[21]  A Henke,et al.  THE 2001 GOTTHARD ROAD TUNNEL FIRE , 2004 .

[22]  David F. Dorsch Assessment and Repair of Fire-Damaged Concrete Structures , 1993 .

[23]  S. Agarwal,et al.  Physicochemical, mineralogical, and morphological characteristics of concrete exposed to elevated temperatures , 2002 .

[24]  Denys Breysse,et al.  How to improve the quality of concrete assessment by combining several NDT measurements , 2009 .

[25]  Tarun R. Naik,et al.  The Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity Method , 2003 .

[26]  Roberto Felicetti,et al.  The drilling resistance test for the assessment of fire damaged concrete , 2006 .

[27]  Malcolm K. Lim,et al.  RAPID AND ECONOMICAL EVALUATION OF CONCRETE TUNNEL LININGS WITH IMPULSE RESPONSE AND IMPULSE RADAR NONDESTRUCTIVE METHODS , 2005 .

[28]  J. A. Purkiss,et al.  ASSESSMENT OF FIRE DAMAGED CONCRETE USING COLOUR IMAGE ANALYSIS , 2001 .

[29]  J. A. Purkiss,et al.  Assessment of fire-damaged concrete using crack density measurements , 2002 .

[30]  J. H. Bungey,et al.  Testing concrete in structures , 1989 .

[31]  Roberto Felicetti,et al.  New NDT techniques for the assessment of fire-damaged concrete structures , 2007 .

[32]  J. Bungey,et al.  Using compression wave ultrasonic transducers to measure the velocity of surface waves and hence determine dynamic modulus of elasticity for concrete , 1996 .

[33]  Roberto Felicetti Assessment of an industrial pavement via the impact acoustics method , 2008 .

[34]  Roberto Felicetti Combined while-drilling techniques for the assessment of the fire damaged concrete cover , 2009 .

[35]  Andrea Benedetti On the Ultrasonic Pulse Propagation into Fire Damaged Concrete , 1998 .