An assessment of the prestress force on the bonded tendon by SI and impact signal analysis techniques

The bonded tendon has been adopted to the reactor containment building of some operating nuclear power plants in Korea and the assessment of the prestress force on the bonded tendon is very important for the evaluation of the structural integrity. The prestress force of the bonded tendon at real reactor containment building was evaluated using the SI technique and impact signal analysis technique which were developed to improve the existing indirect assessment technique. For these techniques, the strain of the reactor containment building and the stress wave velocity of the bonded tendon were measured. Both SI technique and impact signal analysis technique give the highly reliable results comparison with the existing theoretical approach. Therefore, it is confirmed that the developed techniques are very useful for the evaluation of the prestress force on the bonded tendon.

► We developed SI and the impact signal analysis technique to evaluate the prestress force of bonded tendons.
► We assessed the prestress force of bonded tendons in a real reactor containment building using them.
► Our developed techniques suggested highly reliable results for the prestress force of bonded tendons.
► Our developed techniques can simply and accurately evaluate the prestress force of bonded tendons.
► Our study can be applied to other infra-structures with bonded tendons such as bridges and buildings.