Wall Health Monitoring by Ultrasonic Pulse-Echo

Technique

Mainak Chakraborty, Bose Boban M, Damodaran B K and Ruban N

School of Electrical Engineering,
VIT University, Vellore-632014,
Tamil Nadu, India
Email-mainak.chakraborty2019@vitstudent.ac.in; boseboban.m2019@vitstudent.ac.in; damodaranb.k2019@vitstudent.ac.in; nruban@vit.ac.in

Abstract—Civil engineering infrastructures are the most called back-wall echo which is used for thickness gauging
important investments and assets of a country. Be it a bridge, and measuring attenuations. Ultrasonic sensors connected to
or a building or a tunnel or even a dam, it is very important to the Arduino microcontroller will be programmed for
monitor the structural health for our own safety. With the performing some specific tasks. Ultrasonic sensors can not
advent of smart sensing technologies, it has now become only detect the presence of cracks but can also measure the
possible to monitor these structures with much more accuracy thickness of flaws, the distance and can even predict the
and reliability. Ultrasonic Non-Destructive Testing is one of the quality of concrete used by taking into account the velocity
best for such tests. It is a process of measuring the internal of reflected waves [4]. The overall efficiency of the pulse-
characteristics of a structure by passing high frequency sound echo system can be improved by spectrally matching the
waves. These high frequency sound waves travel through transmitter signals with constant amplitude levels thus
concrete medium and reflects back to the source once it making full use of the available power.
encounters a boundary with other medium. By analysing these
reflections, we can detect the presence of cracks, measure the II. METHODOLOGY
thickness etc. In our experiment we have made a prototype of
ultrasonic sensor using Arduino that can detect the presence of
Wall health is an aspect which depends upon various
cracks and also display it on the LED display. The result parameters like number of cracks and depth with which it
obtained is then analysed using the Arduino IDE software. occurs or the material losses inside a wall [5]. To measure
these parameters, we use ultrasonic waves which are high
Keywords—ultrasonic, NDT, pulse-echo, transmitter, frequency sound waves that is penetrable through a material
receiver. structure such as concrete, bricks or whatever body come
across it. The basic working principle of the system is pulse
I. INTRODUCTION echo method which is transmitting ultrasonic pulses through
the wall and the time duration taken to receive the reflected
This paper is a study on the detection of cracks on
concrete walls by using Non-Destructive Ultrasonic pulse- pulses(echo) is calculated. If there are any discontinuities in
echo technique. The various types of Non-Destructive the structure the time taken by the pulse to reflect back will
Techniques are Visual Testing, Radiography, Ultrasonic be altered and this alteration will be considered as a crack or
Testing, Magnetic Particle Testing and Penetrant Testing [1]. bulge which may affect the wall health. Ultrasonic waves
Ultrasound as we know is the sound having frequency of have a velocity of 340m/s [6]. So, if we know the time
more than 20khz that is not audible to the human ear. Non- duration until which the pulse is reflected back, we can
destructive testing is the technique of analysing the measure the distance beyond or hither of the set point fixed
properties of the material without causing any damage. There
manually or by an equipment.
are numerous methods of Non-Destructive Testing (NDT).
But Ultrasonic NDT comes with a number of advantages. It
is highly sensitive, reliable and accurate, minimum
perpetration is required and only single side access is
sufficient for pulse-echo method. The most commonly used
method is the Ultrasonic Pulse-Velocity technique [2]. It can
be used to determine the homogeneity of the concrete, the
presence of cracks/imperfections, the concrete quality as well
as the dynamic elastic modulus of the concrete. If the
concrete quality is poor then lower velocities are obtained. If
there is a crack, strength of the pulse decreases and distance
becomes more. Here we will be utilising the pulse-echo
method for our prototype that will detect the presence of
cracks [3]. The pulse received from the opposite surface is
 Fig 1 Ultrasonic sound waves [19] t=time taken by the pulse until it gets reflected back after
transmission.
III. WORKING
B. Prototype modeling
Initially we need to interface the ultrasonic sensor to an
Arduino. It is an open-source microcontroller which has an The back bone of our prototype is the Arduino
inbuilt architecture. Then we write the program and upload microcontroller with Atmega microprocessor embedded in it.
it into the Atmega chip in the Arduino [7]. Ultrasonic sensor The sensor and displays are interfaced with Arduino and the
we use here is HC-SR04. Ultrasonic reflection is the sensor entire system is fixed inside a bottle with its bottom part
principle and pulse echo method are the transduction removed like a torch and through the open-end signal is
methodology. HC-SR04 contains 4 pins namely Vcc, transmitted and received. The sensor is placed in a fixed
Trigger, Echo and Ground respectively and there are two distance from the opening such that a fixed set point will be
output methods which will be discussed later in this paper obtained for comparison.
[8]. The module has a Transmitter that transmits the
ultrasound and a Receiver that receives the reflected waves
and both are made of piezoelectric material.

Fig 2 The Block Diagram Fig 4 The Prototype Model

C. Program working
A. Pulse echo method The program works on Read/Write operations on the pins
The Transmitter generates the pulsating ultrasound and of Atmega which are connected to the serial port of the
the Receiver receives the reflected signal after it strikes the Arduino, the sensor and LCD display. The program
wall and bounces back [9]. uploaded to the chip triggers the sensor and time taken to
produce echo pulse for no crack is calculated by a Read
operation. This time duration is converted to corresponding
distance which is taken as set point. After fixing the set
point it is nullified internally with a correction factor and for
each value obtained other than null or zero it is considered
as a crack or a bulge.

D. Output

Output can be obtained from an interfaced 16X2 LCD

display or from the serial out of Arduino for graphical
representation [11].

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

By creating the prototype, we performed the experiment

on three different walls. This prototype is powered up
Fig 3 Pulse echo method [13] directly through the serial monitoring output to laptop via
USB cable [12].
Pulse echo method employs sending and reception of
ultrasonic pulses using an ultrasonic transceiver and When it’s ON it’s shows some messages on LCD display
calculating the distance travelled using the equation [10]. like project name and group details. Then it shows
monitoring, when its ready to check the crack on the wall. It
D=vt/2 checks by placing the prototype’s face along the wall.
Where v=velocity of sound=340m/s
 If there is no crack or if it’s a perfect wall, then and analyzed in LabView software using DAQ [14]. This
“CRACK:NO” message is shown in the display else will give more improved results. Further research is required
“CRACK:YES” message is displayed and according to depth for the interpretation of the echoes. There is another method
of the cracks the crack level number displayed will be larger. for wall health monitoring by using the Ultrasonic Direct
Through Transmission [15]. Here the transmitter is used on
From the Arduino serial output we can do a detailed study one side of the wall and the Receiver is placed on the
[13]. It can be graphed according to the data received. Below opposite side of the wall. With the help of the velocity and
shown are the graphical representation of 3 different time taken the distance can be calculated and it can be used
experiment readings taken according to 3 different types of for analysis. But with Pulse-Echo we get the advantage that
cracks in concrete wall. only one side of the wall access is enough. Ultrasonic NDT
are also being used to detect the corrosion in reinforced
concrete [16]. Objects suitable for ultrasonic testing can be of
various size and dimensions. Non-Destructive Testing
certainly has many advantages but at the same time there are
also some limitations specially when it comes to cost. Fiber
Optic distributed Sensors which are currently the best among
all NDT techniques for structural health monitoring is very
costly and the process is also time consuming. In that regard
Ultrasonic sensors are better. The major areas of application
are the aerospace, structural health, oil pipelines etc. [17].
NDT plays an important role in assuring that all structural
components function safely in a reliable manner. Smart
Sensors are now developed with enormous potential for the
structural health monitoring of civil engineering structures.
(a) In the coming years we surely do hope that a much more
accurate cost-effective and easy to use method will come up
for measuring the strength of our houses and bridges.

VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to VIT
University and its management for supporting us all
throughout this research without whose help this paper
would not have been successful.

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