Simulation in NDT

Online Workshop in www.ndt.net in September 2010

Brick masonry elastic modulus determination using the numerical simulation and experiments of sonic wave propagation.
www.ndt.net/?id=9624

J.V. FUENTE 1, R. FERNANDEZ 1, V.ALBERT 1

AIDICO Technological Institute of Construction, Paterna, Spain Phone: +34 961.82.78, Fax: +34 961.31.80.33; e-mail: jvfuente@aidico.es
1

Abstract The aim of this work is to characterise the brick masonry reproductions using nondestructive monitoring testing during the load compression tests. Two walls were fabricated using handicraft solid brick and limestone mortars with low mechanical performance to simulate the typical historical elements regarding their mechanical behaviour. The load process has been stated on 10 Tones until 60 Tones using a 10 Tones stepping. The walls are 300 x 224 x 22 cm of size, one of them with artificial defects and the other one without them. Defects consist of brick absence or breaks and no mortar joints in specific zones. Using mechanical wave propagation, several tests have been carried out during a load stepping process to analyse how evolves the observed parameters and the dependence of the stress status. The experimental tests consist of the application of multichannel sonic test to get wave velocities and hence elastic modulus of the structure, and after that results will be compared with the numerical simulations of single component, bi-component (brick & mortar) and 3D. From the observation has been found the influence of defects, the mortar and bricks to assign the final wall properties and the scope and feasibility of techniques usage will be discussed.

Keywords: tomography, elastic modulus, wave, sonic test, Rayleigh

1. Introduction
The present work deals with the analysis of sonic wave propagating through the brick masonry wall reproduction during the load stepped test and the comparison between experimental and numerical simulation. This specific work concerns about the feasibility of the sonic testing, as NDT method, to determine the elastic modulus of the historical wall. To get the elastic modulus, the most often used method is a minor destructive testing called flatjack. However, it is a tough test and takes more time and it implies a restitution of mortar section. Structural engineers will accept an alternative if it provides quality and confident data about the mechanical performance of the element. The sonic test will provide the elastic modulus in the small stress and strain range, far from the non-linear range passing through the yield stress value. Experimental test were performed at the fire-structure laboratory in the Aidicos facilities building up the 2 solid brick masonry walls that reproduces the mechanical performance of these heritage element types. The both wall were 300 x 224 x 22 cm of size, first built with no defect presence and the second build up with the same technique and materials but including artificial defects.

2. Historical Walls Description.

Two brick masonry walls have been constructed from solid rectangular bricks baked by ancestral procedures on brickyard placed near Valencia city. The aerial lime is the based material for the mortar placed in the joints. This mortar was left 2 months for curing in laboratory conditions to achieve the minimum but required mechanical parameter to perform the load test. As described before, walls were built up using the holland configuration or disposition between bricks[1].

Fig 1. Pictures of Holland disposition and wall settlement at the fire-structure laboratory - AIDICO

One wall was built up without defects but the other one contains artificial defects as air hollows, no mortar joint in specific area or broken bricks as can be seen in Fig 2 expecting that the nature and relevance of the defects produce some reflection and dispersion of the sonic waves. The sizes have been nearly the same.

Fig 2 Artificial defects.

3. Experimental workplan.
The workplan should analyse the ability to determine the elastic modulus of the wall structure regarding the tabulated data for the constitutive elements (brick and mortar) and their relationship for the experimental data and results affected by both contributions. The elastic modulus will be changed by the ultrasonic velocity measured in the acquisition of the sonic waves. The experimental tests were performed at different level of compression supplied by the load structure until 80 Tones. This has been planned to see if velocity and natural frequencies reveal changes in the loading process, using 10 Tns steps. The load has been applied in the 300 x 23 cm (top face) and it is transferred to the bottom side leaving the same load level for 2-5 hours, regarding the evolution of displacement LVDT sensor lay-out in one front face (300 x225). It was applied a pre-load of 15 Tns for a long time to firm down the constitutive elements mortar and bricks). The sharing beam was built in S-275 JR steel to guarantee the charge transference as it could be seen in Fig 3.

From the point of view of sonic test (NDT) it was used a multichannel and multi-impact configuration with 14 accelerometers (vibration sensors PCB 353B17). The accelerometers were placed in the wide faces (225 x 23 cm) each 20 or 22 cm, fixing in a brick element to assure good joint and rejecting possible unexpected signal decreasing. The exciter was an instrumented hammer PCB 08620D connected to the acquisitor that provides a certain trigger and stable broadband signal excitation. The 7 accelerometers were placed in each lateral wide face and the 7 impacts were applied nearby the accelerometer position [2].

Fig 3 Historical wall in the final placement on the steel support and the sharing triangular beam.

At each load level (25, 35, 45 and 60 Tones), it has been applied the sonic tomography test acquiring the 14 records each time. The waveform were treated in Matlab Computing software extracting the time-of-flight and the main or maximum frequencies. By one hand, the time-of-flight were used as an input data for an specific algorithm based on radial basis function to interpolate the data measured in lateral face (experimental data) and to produce a velocity map tomography for each load test. It has been used to analyse the influence of the sonic velocity during the load. Also, it is analysed if this nondestructive parameter is affected by the stress-strain status (in the linear range). The eigenmodes were obtained from the presence of natural frequencies. To have good resolution and accuracy in the spectral estimation it was used lower sampling frequency and large acquisition time. It has been compared the influence of eigenmodes and their frequencies with the load level.

4. Numerical Simulations.
To investigate the sonic propagation, the influence of the constitutive materials and boundary conditions is this abovementioned parameter has been implemented some numerical simulations and models. The numerical wave propagation simulation were carried out using Wave Plus 2000 software from Cyberlogic company. The solid brick masonry walls were simulated using displacement sources 2 kHz frequencies (that it is the maximum pick for the hammer) and one complete cycle (duration equal to 500 us) the location of accelerometer and hitting were nearly the same.

Fig 4 Waveform of exciting sine pulse.

The models were built considering 1 or 2 constitutive elements (brick and mortar) and placing the constant modulus and density for each one. The attenuation effects were not considered in this approach because it was difficult assign confident damping values for these heterogeneous materials. The receivers were sensitive to the displacement with a gain of 30 dB. The time scale step was 0.3 and the time resolution around 1.6 us. Also, the maximum solved frequency was 5 kHz (see Fig 5).

Fig 5 Control parameters for the simulation

5. Analysis and Results.

Firstly, it is provided the experimental results of the sonic resonance test, using a low sampling frequency; several hits have been applied on different wall front face points to excite the main eigenmodes. This has been performed after the LVDTs remain constants in the load transference. The spectral analysis using Fast Fourier Transform FFT allows evaluating the frequencies with a major relevance of presence for each load level. Using FEM software has been calculated the eigenmodes since from the size, weight and disposition of the mechanical elements.
(Apparent Density) = 1800 kg/m3 E(Yield Stress) = 3500 MPa Et (Tangent Modulus) = 770 MPa (Poisson Ration) = 0.18

a) 8.35 Hz

b) 16.31 Hz c) 39.97 Hz d) 50.61 Hz Fig 6 Eigenmodes and related frequencies.

This result has been obtained for pre-load and sharing beam load as the main boundary condition. The frequencies that correspond to the eigenmodes increase slightly during the load process as it could be observed in the Fig 7.

EigenFrequencies vs applied load: Wall 1

f 1 (f l ex )

EigenFrequencies vs applied load: Wall 2

60 y =6,7824Ln( x) - 19,162 R2 =0,9685 50

70 y = 8,0828Ln(x) - 30,748 R2 = 0,9779 60

f4 f6 f 2 (t or s ) f3

f1 (flex) f2 (tors) f3

50

40

Logar t mi c a ( f 1 (f l ex ))

f4 f6

40

30

30

20 y =2,0483Ln( x) - 11,637 R2 =0,9207

20
y = 3, 2923Ln( x ) - 24, 124 R 2 = 0, 9906

10

10

0 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000

A p p l ied Lo ad ( N ewt o n)

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

A p p l i ed Lo ad ( N e wt o n)

a)

b)

Fig 7 Frequencies evolution for increasing load steps for the both walls a) Wall 1 and b) Wall 2.

The obtained trend for the frequency is logarithmic. It means that the increment of the natural frequency for flexural, torsional, and combination modes follows a logarithm trend. Regarding the sonic tomography, velocity maps calculated from the interpolation results the neural network algorithm based on radial basis functions are provided. This algorithms considers the velocity obtained in each receiver position, and building the ray-tracing and placing some strategic nodes, returns the tomography filling with calculated velocity values of the faces within the sonic propagation pathway occurs, it means, the lateral face 300x225 cm.
Reconstruct ion
Reconstruction

1950 2 1900
2

1950

1900

1850 1.5 1800

y (m) 1.5

1850

1800

y (m)

1750 1 1700

1750 1 1700

1650 0.5 1600

0.5

1650

1600

1550
0

1550

0 0 0. 5 1 1. 5 x (m) 2 2.5 3

0.5

1.5 x (m)

2. 5

a)
Reconst ruction 1950 2 1900
2

b)
Reconst ruct ion 1950 1900

1850 1.5 1800

y (m) 1.5

1850

1800

y (m)

1750 1

1750 1 1700

1700

1650

1650
0.5

0.5 1600

1600

1550

1550
0 0 0.5 1 1.5 x (m) 2 2.5 3

0 0 0.5 1 1.5 x (m) 2 2. 5 3

c)

d)

Fig 8 Velocity tomographies during the Load procedure a) 0, b) 25, c) 35 y d) 45 Tn.

It is observed that the range of velocities is placed between 1450 and 1650 m/s. Also, it could be seen some slightly increasing of the sonic velocity with the load, but it is more related with the extension of the higher velocities along the total area. It means, the upper and central zone

has 100-200 metres higher velocity (interpolated) and this green colour spreads to lower zone along the higher loads. Therefore, the velocity is lightly affected to the stress-strain status, with no evidence of cracking process is produced with these loads because we were far from yield stress range (in the stress-strain curve). However, this result implies that it is not easy to use the sonic velocity to characterise the stress-strain status because some changes in the constitutive materials (mechanical properties or relation between them) will cause higher changes in the velocity. So that 200 m/s it is not enough to use the velocity to characterise the stress-strain status. This way just works properly with a homogeneous materials or at least if you are confident that the material and construction elements do not change in their mechanical properties. From the numerical simulation point of view, the results were analysed separately by types. The splitted types were the following: 1 component, 2Dimension (300 x 225 cm) 2 components, 2Dimension (300 x 225 cm) 1 component, 3Dimension (300 x 225 cm) The boundary condition (pressure or load in the top face) was not defined, so that it is not possible comparing the values with high loads [4]. Numerical Simulation Type1. Just a single material was modelled using bibliography reference parameters; this material is an approximation of brick masonry wall (unknown disposition brick and mortars).

Fig 9 Material parameter for Simulation Type 1.

Both materials have assigned the same elastic parameters, derived from the average and tabulated Young modulus, Poisson ratio and density for this constructive typology [3].
Table 1. Values for Solid Brick Masonry.

Constructive element Solid Brick Wall

E Poisson (GPa) Ratio 3.00-5.66 0.17

Density (kg/m3) 1800

(MPa) (MPa) 1232 2392

Vp (m/s) 1838

Vs (m/s) 1153

The results derived from the numerical simulation set (1 component and 2D) is Vp = 189420 m/s and Vs=140523 m/s. These results imply higher velocity values from the obtained

experimental. Decreasing the values of the parameters (material elastic modulus , and the corresponding E, G and ), could approach the results (velocity range in the numerical simulation) to the experimental data but it causes a mechanical and constitutive parameters E, G and out of the range of the common and most used range of data for the brick masonry structures.

Fig 10 Wave propagation and signal acquired P & S waves in the receivers after propagation Type1.

Numerical Simulation Type2. Considering two different constitutive materials for the brick wall, it means, historical mortar based on aerial limes with high sand/lime (6) and low water/ratio for the binder and the solid bricks it is performed the same procedure for the numerical simulation set or type2. It is shown the values on the next table.
Table 2 Values for the solid brick masonry constitutive elements.

Constructive element Solid Brick Historical Mortar

E (GPa) 4,22 2,28

Poisson Ratio 0,31 0,29

Density (kg/m3) 1900 1470

(MPa) (MPa) 5000 4000 2660 2300

Vp (m/s) 2615 2222

Vs (m/s) 1450 1250

Fig 11 2D-2 component model (a) & signal acquired P & S waves (b) in the receivers after propagation TYPE 2.

Waveform of P & S signals SOLID BRICK W ALL 2D-2 component 1

0.5

0 data1 P - I1 P - I2 S- I1 S - I2

Signals

-0.5

-1

-1.5

-2

The mean sonic velocity is higher that the case of 2D -1 single component which it implies that the experimental data are not correct. The mean P-wave value is around 2435 m/s and the S-wave value is 1720 m/s. They are far on the experimental data.
6000

-2.5

1000

2000

3000 4000 Tiem of Flight (us)

5000

(b) Numerical Simulation Type3. The last numerical simulation set involves 3D modelisation of the wall using the sizes (300 x 225 x 23 cm) and getting the parameters for the single component solid brick masonry from the numerical simulation set 1. This simulation reveals that the effective wave propagation is the Rayleigh wave, propagated through the surface. The Rayleigh wave velocity, obtained by the application of tabulated parameter material elastic modulus , and the corresponding E, G and , is around 15001650 m/s that joints properly with the experimental data. Therefore the 3D simulation has helped to know the real propagation wave, so that the importance of the numerical simulation has been proved.

Fig 12 Rayleigh waves in the TYPE 3.

6. Conclusions.
The numerical simulation of the wave propagation in the sonic test, performed by Wave, allows understanding which is the real propagation and the wave type. This information is required to determine the elastic constants of this complex element and to compare with expected data that comes from bibliography or the minor destructive testing as the flatjack method (single and double) that allows calculating the stress-strain curve, tangent and secant Young modules. The numerical simulation of big size elements should be performed for low frequencies by computational reasons, and decreasing the time scale time in order to avoid instability simulations. Finally, the tomographies reveal the load transference and compression status but the influence in the velocity is slight. The eigenmodes and eigenfrequencies (resonant test) depend on the load conditions. References 1. A. Zucchini, P.B Loureno, A Micro-Mechanical Model for the Homogenisation of Masonry, submitted to International Journal of Solids and Structures, 2008 2. L. Binda, A. Saisi and C. Tiraboschi, Application of Sonic Tests to the Diagnosis of Damage and Repaired Structures, International Journal Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation, NDT&E Int., vol. 34 n. 2, pp. 123-138, 2001.

3. L. Binda, A. Saisi, L. Zanzi, Deliverable 8.3 - ONSITEFORMASONRY: On-site investigation techniques for the structural evaluation of historic masonry buildings, n project reference: EVK4-2001-00091. 4. P. Hirsekorn, P. P. Delsanto, N. K. Batra, P. Matic, Modelling and simulation of acoustic wave propagation in locally resonant sonic materials, Ultrasonics, Volume 42, Issues 1-9, pp 231-235, April 2004