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NDT investigation of new and existing construction
Our client was in the process of building a new grocery store in a shopping center amongst existing buildings.
Some structural failures were identified during construction and our client felt that it was necessary to
investigate the quality of all of the remaining construction. Our client wanted to insure that all of the
buildings on site met their anticipated construction expectations. In order to confirm that these were
maintained and were consistent throughout all of the buildings, the client hired us to conduct a
non-destructive investigation of the existing and the new construction. The investigation was conducted to
confirm the presence or absence of reinforcement and grout in several of the existing block walls at the site.
We deployed a MALA GeoSciences 1.6 GHz high frequency GPR and an Elcometer Protovale 331 concrete covermeter
for the investigation.
The presence and spacing of horizontal and vertical rebar in the existing concrete walls appeared to be
relatively consistent throughout the block walls investigated. The geophysical data indicated that concrete
block cells containing rebar consistently contained grout.
Six critical reinforcement locations in the new construction were evaluated for the presence or absence of
reinforcement and grout. Horizontal rebar and grouting of block wall cells appeared to be consistent with the
anticipated construction expectations. However, the geophysical data did not indicate the presence of anticipated
vertical rebar reinforcement in all of the block wall cells directly below the load bearing zones.
As a result of our investigation, our client was able to be confident with their construction plans and reinforce
areas which were identified to have a less reinforcement.
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