Advancing the Elastic Wave Characterization of Critical Buried Concrete Pipelines

Louisiana Tech University, Ruston LA

Investigators

Abstract

This funding will support research that creates new knowledge related to the investigation of buried concrete pipes, which promotes science and advances the national prosperity and welfare. Concrete pipes constitute an integral part of our infrastructure. The large diameter pipes buried under major urban areas act as critical arteries of the underground space, and their failure has the potential to create major disruptions. This project will demonstrate and advance an elastic wave-based technique to accurately quantify the unknown elastic properties of buried concrete pipes and liners used for their rehabilitation. In this technique the dynamic response of a pipe is measured, and the unknown parameters are calculated by matching the response against the theoretical predictions. The ability to measure the in-situ properties accurately will provide the opportunity to improve the remaining life prediction of these utilities, enhance their asset management practices and reduce the overall cost of maintenance. This research project provides opportunity to generate intellectual property, increase U.S. competitiveness, and broaden the undergraduate civil engineering education. The multichannel surface wave analysis technique is an inverse parameter estimation technique that is widely used in geophysics for investigating the layered half-space and plate like elastic mediums. During this project, this technique will be investigated for buried concrete pipes using longitudinal and circumferential waves. Its implementation in a space restricted pipe segment introduces several challenges. For example, gathering a dense waveform record, which is essential for creating a high-resolution dispersion image, is a challenging task. To overcome this problem, the recent advances in sparse sensing techniques will be investigated for this pipe application. The scientific contributions of this project include the development of analytical solutions for selective wave propagation problems necessary for conducting the waveform inversion, design of sensor array optimized for concrete pipes, and new signal processing algorithms to enable the effective characterization of concrete pipes. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.