Engineering Commons^™

A Simple, Robust, And On-Site Microwave Technique For Determining Water-To-Cement Ratio (W/C) Of Fresh Portland Cement-Based Materials, K. Mubarak, Karl Joseph Bois, R. Zoughi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Inspection and evaluation of cement-based materials such as concrete is of great interest to the construction industry. In particular, real-time and on-site evaluation of water-to-cement ratio (w/c) is an important practical issue, since the compressive strength of a concrete structure is significantly influenced by its w/c. Currently, there is no single real-time, on-site, relatively in-expensive, easy-to-implement, and operator friendly technique for evaluating this parameter. Microwave nondestructive testing and evaluation techniques have shown great promise when used for inspection and evaluation of the properties of cement-based materials. In this paper, the optimal design of a monopole antenna probe used to evaluate …