Multimodal NDT monitoring of Textile Reinforced Cementitious Composite Sandwich beams in bending

Textile Reinforced Cementitious (TRC) sandwich technology generate lightweight elements with satisfactory loadbearing capacity. The non-corrosive nature of the textiles allows for concrete cover reductions, and therefore energy savings and lower carbon emissions when compared to a steel reinforced concrete sandwich, or steel reinforced concrete elements. However, due to its composite nature, TRC sandwich elements have a complex damage behavior, and bad interlaminar bond, might cause premature debonding, and drastically reduce the loadbearing capacity of the composite. Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Techniques allow to inspect and monitor structural elements without affecting their behavior. In this study, MMW Spectrometry, Acoustic Emission, and Digital Image Correlation are used simultaneously to monitor quasi static four-point bending tests of TRC sandwich panels, and similar elements with an artificially destroyed interlaminar bond.