Attenuation of ultrasonic pulse in cement mortar

The use of ultrasonic pulse attenuation (UPA) as a non-destructive testing parameter to evaluate the quality of material is presented in this paper. The attenuation of ultrasonic pulse is a combined effect of the geometric dispersion and energy dissipation. The characteristics of pulse attenuation with respect to the transmitted path length can be represented by a simple equation. Experiments to examine the relationship of the quality of cement mortar to pulse attenuation and to pulse velocity (UPV) are performed. Results of the experiments show that the pulse attenuation correlate well to compressive strength of cement mortar. The combined UPA and UPV method for strength estimation is also evaluated.