Development of an inspection system for cracks in a concrete tunnel lining

Over the last several decades, many concrete tunnels have been constructed for roads, highways, and railways. For safety in concrete tunnels, periodic inspections have been conducted using nondestructive testing technologies and techniques. However, nondestructive tests cannot replace visual inspection because of their slow and complicated procedures. For this reason, their use has been limited to precision inspections. Visual methods of assessment also require significant time commitments, and they produce subjective results regarding measured crack data. This study proposes an inspection system for the rapid measurement of cracks in tunnel linings and provides an objective method for assessing crack data for safety purposes. The system consists of both image data acquisition and analysis systems. The acquisition system takes images with charge-coupled device (CCD) line-scan cameras. The analysis system extracts crack information from the acquired images using image processing. Measured crack information includes the thickness, length, and orientation of cracks. To improve the accuracy of crack recognition, the geometric properties and patterns of cracks in concrete structures should be applied to image processing. This proposed system was verified through a series of experiments in both laboratory and field environments. Key words: crack, inspection, image processing, tunnel lining, tunnel safety.