Assessing sensitivity of impact echo and ultrasonic surface waves methods for nondestructive evaluation of concrete structures

•Ultrasonic Surface Waves (USW) and Impact Echo (IE) NDT methods are thoroughly described.•The sensitivity of the IE and USW methods to several parameters is demonstrated.•The sensitivity is evaluated in both quality control and performance monitoring stages.•The advantages of combining the IE and USW results are pointed out.

Two nondestructive testing methods for performance monitoring of concrete structures are Impact Echo (IE) and Ultrasonic Surface Waves (USW). To fully investigate the sensitivity of these methods to different parameters, several concrete slabs were tested with the Portable Seismic Property Analyzer (PSPA). The concrete slabs included a number of intact slabs with varying thicknesses and a number of slabs containing artificial defects. This research study shows how the effectiveness of the IE and USW methods is limited by their sensitivity to the dimension and thickness of the slab, and depth and size of the defect within the slab.