Cost-Effective Inspection of Rebar Spacing and Clearance Using RGB-D Sensors

The quality assurance of constructing reinforced concrete (RC) structures in compliance with their design plays a key role in the durability, serviceability, and sustainability of the built RC elements. One area of concern in the quality control of constructing RC structures is examining the positio...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Xinxing Yuan, Fernando Moreu, Maryam Hojati
Format: article
Language:EN
Published: MDPI AG 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doaj.org/article/176d45e9415d43d39cf10f3586e683c9
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The quality assurance of constructing reinforced concrete (RC) structures in compliance with their design plays a key role in the durability, serviceability, and sustainability of the built RC elements. One area of concern in the quality control of constructing RC structures is examining the position and dimension of the rebars before pouring fresh concrete. Currently, this is accomplished by visual inspection and individually by hand with limited time available between construction stages. Over the past decades, structural health and monitoring during the construction period has applied remote sensing technologies. However, little research has focused on the use of such technologies to inspect and evaluate rebar placement prior to concrete pouring as quality control. In this study we develop an algorithm that facilitates inspecting the positions of rebars and the cover of concrete using a new-generation low-cost RGB-D sensor to find incorrect rebar placement. The proposed method is evaluated using a typical 5 × 5 two-layer rebar cage in the laboratory by comparing the proposed technique with traditional inspection methods. The results show that the RGB-D sensor can achieve cost-effective inspection for rebar spacing and clearance with an acceptable tolerance. The evaluation of rebar spacing results shows that the maximum standard deviation for rebar spacing is 0.34 inch (8.64 mm) between longitudinal rebar 2 and 3, which is the same as the rebar construction and traditional tape measurement results. The concrete cover estimation results show that the maximum standard deviation for rebar cage concrete cover is 0.19 inch (4.83 mm) for longitudinal rebar 3. The issues of new RGB-D sensor scan settings and the test results will be helpful for practitioners in improving construction quality.