Development of contactless corrosion detection system

Please check whether enrolling in this project is possible by directly contacting the responsible supervisor(s) indicated below as soon as possible. Note that although we announce many topics, we won't be able to offer all of them simultaneously due to limited lab capacity.

A considerable number of structures in Switzerland were built between 1950 and 1970. These structures must be inspected to ensure their durability and their safety. The most common degradation mechanism for reinforced concrete (RC) is corrosion. Nowadays, a common technology used to monitor the corrosion conditions of RC structures involves manual and repetitive work (e.g., half-cell potential mapping). Therefore, there is a necessity to find an automated and possibly contactless method to perform electrochemical measurements. Currently, the concept of a contactless corrosion detection system is available, but it is still at an early stage.

Your tasks will be to build the prototype for the contactless corrosion inspection in the first part of the thesis. This prototype will be subsequently tested on RC samples to find the benefits and limits of the technology.

The long-term goal of this project is to increase the efficiency of the corrosion inspection of RC structures in order to make them more cost-efficient for application in engineering practice.

contact corrosion inspection — Development of a concept of contactless corrosion inspection for reinforced concrete structures.