• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.112-119
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• 2011

Sheaths are arranged in the web and lower part of prestressed-concrete girder bridges, and prestressing wires and concrete are indirectly bonded together by filling interior parts of the sheaths. However, when the filling is not sufficient, water can penetrate the interior parts of the sheaths and, thereby, prestressing wires can be corroded or transverse cracks would occur around sheaths by the freezing and thawing action of the penetrated water. Therefore, it is an important element in maintenance management of structures to find out the sheaths unfilled with grout early after construction. In this paper, in order not to damage bridge members, the impact-echo method with a new approach in application is used to probe sheaths unfilled with grout for real structures. The location of sheaths is first estimated with reinforcing bar probing instrument of radar type and the measurement locations of sheaths are determined. By sending elastic wave to the side of girders and receiving the response, the location of the unfilled part of a sheath was estimated from the difference between high frequency peak and twice the resonance frequency indicating thickness. To verify the location of void estimated by the impact-echo method, pictures were taken by an industrial fiber scope after drilling a hole.