A Comparative Analysis of the Magnetization Methods Used in the Magnetic Nondestructive Testing of Reinforced Concrete Structures

This work presents how significantly the proper selection of the magnetization method can improve almost all parameters of the magnetic method and affect the effectiveness of the evaluation of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Three magnetization methods are considered in this paper: opposite pole magnetization (typical solution), same pole magnetization, and (as a reference point) no magnetization. The experiments are carried out in a three-dimensional (XYZ) space. Measurements along each of the axes are discussed in a separate section. The results show that the appropriate selection of the magnetization method can affect noise reduction, signal strength, and the separation of measurements carried out on different samples. This paper also discusses the situations when the magnetization may change the shape, cause deformations of waveforms, affect the area testing, and be used to significantly increase the efficiency of simultaneous evaluation of three basic parameters of RC structure. Experiments and simulations have proven that properly applied magnetization may strongly affect the evaluation’s effectiveness, making the magnetic method one of the most promising techniques in testing RC constructions.