Variation of Image Analysis Results for Determining the Characteristics of the Air-Void System on Hardened Concrete

Recently, the cases of freeze-thaw distress on concrete pavement in domestic have been reported periodically. Hereupon, the necessity to establish the standard of spacing factor came to the fore. The test method for analyzing spacing factor is provided in the standard of ASTM C 457. Since researchers tend to judge study results subjectively, the results should be revised throughly. Image analysis program for determining the characteristics of air-void system on hardened concrete identify air void through the difference of a color. The pixel intensity values used in this program have a significant effect on the analysis results. This study compared the automated void count by varying pixel intensity values with the manual void count in order to determine the optimum range of pixel intensity values. Also, this study analyzed the air-void characteristics on eight kinds of concrete mixtures. In this study, it was confirmed that the variation of void counted manually was around 10% from the results of round robin test, and that the optimum range of pixel intensity values is around 80~90. And it was also confirmed that air content (as a whole) was increased generally and spacing factor was decreased by increasing air-entrainer content. But some concrete mixtures showed a tendency that air content was constant and spacing factor was decreased by increasing air-entrainer content. This causes the air entrained by air-entrainer has more influence on spacing factor than air content. Also, the deviation of spacing factor by cutting position of concrete specimen was about 30~100 because of the limit of 2-D image analysis. The additional study about variation of spacing factor by cutting position of concrete specimen will be performed later.