Since concrete members with fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement ar
e not as ductile as conventional structures, and since concrete in retrofit
ted members is often covered and not readily available for visual inspectio
n, development of nonintrusive and nondestructive damage assessment tools i
s essential. Ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) can provide such an assessment
tool, and help quantify the extent and progression of damage in concrete.
Continuous UPV monitoring of a number of concrete cylinders and concrete-fi
lled FRP tubes showed the concrete-filled tubes to have higher sensitivity
at lower stress ratios as compared to plain concrete. When compared with th
e axial strain energy, the UPV damage index has a much better resolution fo
r stress ratios up to about 50% of ultimate strength. This ratio depends on
the thickness of the jacket. It was also shown that the UPV has a strong c
orrelation with volumetric strains after confinement is activated. Therefor
e, at high levels of axial loads when the confining pressure of the jacket
results in volumetric compaction, the UPV increases by about 6% of the init
ial pulse velocity. Repeated loading generally induces the same rate of cha
nge of UPV damage index as that of the initial loading on the virgin specim
en. This phenomenon occurs irrespective of the stress ratio at which the sp
ecimen is unloaded or reloaded. A comparison of the UPV damage index with t
he normalized acoustic emission counts reveals that the two methods have di
fferent sensitivities at different stages of loading and could potentially
complement each other as a hybrid damage assessment tool.