Recent progress on structural engineering studies of reinforced concrete using neutron diffraction

Suzuki, Hiroshi  ; Kusunoki, Koichi*; Kanematsu, Manabu*; Mukai, Tomohisa*

Recently, the neutron diffraction technique has been provided to some applications on the structural engineering studies of the reinforced concrete structure. For example, we applied it to evaluation of the bond condition of the post installed adhesive anchor. The result showed that the stress distributions exhibit different trend depending on the type of adhesive, and the difference in the bond stress calculated by the slope of the stress distribution in the anchorage region is correlated to the difference in their bond strengths. The other topic is evaluation of bending bond behaviour of the reinforced concrete beam reinforced by main rebar and some stirrups. The stress distributions along main rebar as well as stirrups embedded in concrete were successfully measured using neutron diffraction under bending moment, and bond degradation due to flexural cracking was captured by measuring a change in the bond stress distribution. These results suggest that neutron diffraction can provide insight into the real structural engineering issues on the reinforced concrete structures.