NDT assessment of existing concrete structures: spatial analysis of rebound hammer results recorded in-situ

A comparative spatial analysis of surface hardness of structural concrete is introduced. Main objective of the paper is to make a repeatability comparison of three types of the still most popular non-destructive testing devices for concrete: L-type original Schmidt rebound hammer, N-type original Schmidt rebound hammer and N-type Silver Schmidt rebound hammer. Results indicate that the surface hardness measurement uncertainty is related to the weight of the hammer mass and is apparently not related to the impact energy of the rebound hammer devices. It is observed that the measure of surface hardness for the Silver Schmidt rebound hammer (Q-value) does not have positive correlation to the original rebound index (R). Results indicate the best performance of the N-type original Schmidt rebound hammer in terms of stability and normality of data. Geostatistical analysis of the measured data (in terms of empirical semivariograms) highlights different statistical behaviour for the mechanical recording rebound hammers and for the electro-optical recording rebound hammer.