Development of a novel approach to

detect damage in concrete structures with

millimeter wave radar assessment system

Cite as: Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 044710 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0045700

Submitted: 28 January 2021 . Accepted: 15 March 2021 . Published Online: 21 April 2021

Sanjeev K. Singh, Naina Narang, and Dharmendra Singh

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Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 044710 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0045700 92, 044710

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Development of a novel approach to detect

damage in concrete structures with millimeter
wave radar assessment system
Cite as: Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 044710 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045700
Submitted: 28 January 2021 • Accepted: 15 March 2021 •
Published Online: 21 April 2021

Sanjeev K. Singh,1 Naina Narang,2 and Dharmendra Singh2,a)

AFFILIATIONS
1
AcSIR, CSIR-Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, Uttarakhand 247667, India
2
Department of ECE, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand 247667, India

a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: dharmfec@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Nonintrusive damage assessment of concrete structures is evolving using newer technological interventions. Researchers are using different
assessment techniques having their intrinsic limitations. A few are partially destructive, whereas others only provide qualitative informa-
tion about the damages. Therefore, there is a need for a method using high-resolution imaging techniques for the assessment of exact
damages and their depth along with intensity. Millimeter wave may be one of the good options for damage assessment. It is an efficient
technique used in imaging applications due to its high resolution and effective penetration. Therefore, a novel millimeter wave assess-
ment method is used in this study as a nondestructive post-fire damage test of concrete based civil engineering structures. An active
millimeter wave radar system of 55–65 GHz has been used to measure the complex relative permittivity of concrete cube specimens for
evaluation of damages caused by fire. In this study, fire damaged and control concrete cube specimens of 150 mm size were used for
the measurement. The results were compared with the existing technique of ultrasonic pulse velocity, and it was found to be in good
agreement.
Published under license by AIP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0045700

I. INTRODUCTION
Concrete generally offers good fire resistance properties, i.e.,
non-combustible and resistance to flame penetration.1,2 However,
the constituents of concrete behave differently at elevated temper-
atures because of the difference in their thermal conductivity and
coefficient of expansion. Therefore, post-fire assessment by non-
destructive testing (NDT) of civil structures is a crucial topic of
study.3,4 Conventionally, the post-fire damage assessment is car-
ried out using the ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) technique and
other partially destructive techniques such as extraction of cores
and testing. However, the percentage of the damages caused by
fire/elevated temperatures cannot be anticipated using these con-
ventional nondestructive tests for providing appropriate structural
strengthening and rehabilitation. The UPV test largely depends on
the material properties and surface preparation, whereas the same
will not be able to efficiently predict the exact depth of fire damages.5
Similarly, extraction of core from the fire-damaged structures is
difficult and unable to provide the required information due to addi-
tional damages during core extraction and testing. Various other
techniques have been studied to improve damage detection, espe-
cially to improve the accuracy in nondestructive techniques such as
lasers, radar, millimeter wave (MMW), temperature measurement,
infrared thermography, and image processing.6–10 Recently, for fire
exposure, in particular, a detailed temperature gradient measure-
ment using a fiber optics sensor on the reinforced concrete beams
was used to identify the fracture-like cracks in the specimen.11 How-
ever, this method localizes the crack at the sharp peaks of tem-
perature, thus becoming a monitoring system, which can be used
during fire rather than the detection system required for assessment
in a post-fire exposure scenario. In addition, it is difficult to know
the fraction or percentage of damages in structural elements for
which information of damage up to the exact location is critically
required.
To overcome the limitations of the conventional tech-
niques, NDT methods based on microwave and millimeter wave

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 044710 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045700 92, 044710-1
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frequencies have become viable solutions due to good pene-
trability, better resolution, low power requirement, repeatability,
robustness, and non-contact systems.12–14 Due to these advantages,
microwave and millimeter wave have overcome the limitations
of the conventional damage assessment techniques. The electro-
magnetic properties hold the power to characterize the construc-
tion materials, both macroscopically and microscopically.15 There-
fore, there is great potential in the field of microwave signals
for damage assessment of concrete structures and overall struc-
tural health monitoring of civil engineering structures. Researchers
have shown the applicability of microwave imaging in detecting
flaws such as cracks on the surface of the construction material
specimens using synergic use of microwaves and lasers.12,15 Much
work has been carried out by researchers in the field of detect-
ing fatigue and surface cracks in aerospace and civil structures
using microwave and millimeter wave frequencies.16–19 However,
no research work is available in the open literature on the detec-
tion of damages caused by the fire in concrete civil structures using
reflection only millimeter wave measurement to the best of our
knowledge.
Therefore, in this paper, a novel method has been proposed for
structural health assessment and monitoring using millimeter wave
of frequency ranging from 55 to 65 GHz. The fire damage assessment
of the concrete specimen has been detected using an electromagnetic
property (relative permittivity, εr ), which is extracted using stepped
frequency continuous wave (SFCW) radar measurement of reflec-
tion and transmission losses. The effect of damage on the relative
permittivity of the material has been illustrated, which can be used
to localize the damage within the concrete structures for suggest-
ing appropriate rehabilitation/strengthening measures. The electri-
cal properties are supposed to change after exposure to fire, and
the same has been measured slice-wise using the millimeter wave
imaging. The interior damage detection has been done by extract-
ing the permittivity of each slice. The millimeter wave has pro-
vided good penetrability, better resolution, low power requirement,
repeatability, and robustness.
The structure of this paper is as follows: In Sec. II, the
detailed explanation about the material, fire exposure method,
Nicolson–Ross–Weir (NRW) algorithm for the permittivity extrac-
tion, UPV test, and millimeter wave radar system is given. In
Sec. III, the measurement results are discussed and compared with
the conventional UPV test. A brief conclusion is given in Sec. IV.
II. Theoretical background and proposed
methodology
In this section, the details of the specimen under test and
the method of fire exposure are presented along with the theoreti-
cal analysis of permittivity calculation. The conventional ultrasonic
TABLE I. Mix proportion of M30 grade concrete.
Coarse aggregate (kg/m3 )
Cement Fine aggregate
(kg/m3 ) (kg/m3 ) 10 nm
380 720 730
Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 044710 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045700
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pulse velocity (UPV) test is also discussed, which is used for vali-
dation purposes in this study. Finally, the details of the proposed
measurement system are given.
A. Material of specimen under test
Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) 43 grade confirming to IS
269-2015 was used in the concrete mix. River sand of Zone II con-
firming to IS 383-2016, having a specific gravity of 2.68 and a fine-
ness modulus of 2.34, was used as fine aggregate. Crushed stone
aggregate of a maximum size of 20 mm having a specific gravity
of 2.7 and a fineness modulus of 6.9 was used as coarse aggregate.
Potable tap water was used for mixing and curing concrete spec-
imens. Third generation carboxylic ether-based super-plasticizer
confirming to IS 9103 was used to attain the desired workability. The
mix proportioning of the concrete for M30 grade is given in Table I.
The cubic specimens are prepared with the length of each side taken
as 15 cm.
B. Method of fire exposure
Concrete specimens were exposed to elevated temperatures of
800 ○ C in a muffle furnace. The temperature of the furnace was
monitored precisely with the help of four in-built thermocouples.
The slow heating rate of the furnace was set at 6 ○ C/min. Various
researchers have investigated similar studies on a slow heating rate
to understand the characteristics of the concrete exposed to different
temperatures. The specimens were kept in the furnace for a period
of 2 h at a set exposure temperature of 800 ○ C. The specimens were
allowed to cool within the furnace at ambient temperature. A typ-
ical heating and cooling phase of the specimens exposed to 800 ○ C
is shown in Fig. 1. The temperatures of specimens were recorded at
10 min intervals using a data logger. In the heating phase, the surface
temperature of the specimen was set at 800 ○ C, and a constant heat-
ing rate was applied. It was observed that the surface attained the set
temperature of 800 ○ C in about 740 min. The surface temperature
was maintained for 2 h in the range of 800 ± 10 ○ C in the furnace. In
the cooling phase, the specimens were allowed to cool down to room
temperature within the furnace by opening the door of the furnace.
C. NRW algorithm to predict material permittivity
The permittivity value of the material is generally extracted
from the transmission and reflection measurement of the material
using the Nicolson–Ross–Weir (NRW) algorithm.20,21 According to
this non-iterative algorithm, the relative permittivity of the material
εr can be given as
εr = λ0 / ∧ (1 − Γ/1 + Γ), (1)
Water Super-plasticizer
20 nm (kg/m3 ) dosage (kg/m3 )
485 171 0.85
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where α is in Np/m, as in (8), and d in m. Theoretically, at the center

frequency of 60 GHz, considering the concrete with εr = 3.3 − 0.38j
from the literature,23 the attenuation constant is 11.3 dB/cm [using
Eq. (8)]. The attenuation of the wave traveling until the end of the
specimen (i.e., 15 cm) can be calculated as α ⋅ d, where α is in dB/cm
and d is in cm. If we take the attenuation value from Ref. 22, the
result is 100 dB. If we take the attenuation from Ref. 23, the result
is 169.5 dB. Thus, it is to be noted that the transmission coefficient
value is expected to be very small, i.e., T ≪ 1, since the attenuation
constant is quite large. It is mentioned in Refs. 22 and 24 that “when
the material thickness is large (compared to the wavelength) and/or
the material losses are high, the reflection of a plane wave on a dielec-
tric slab can be approximated by the reflection coefficient referred
before.” Furthermore, the scattering parameter S21 is given as25

S21 = T(1 − Γ2 )/1 − Γ2 T 2 . (10)

FIG. 1. Surface temperature vs time for temperature exposure at 800 ○ C showing
the heating and cooling phases.
Thereby, it becomes agreeable to approximate the S21 param-
eter to nearly zero in the above-mentioned algorithm.26 One may
where
understand that for the mathematical stability of the algorithm, the
1/Λ = j/2πd ln(1/T), (2) non-zero value of T has to be considered, which is, however, very
small in magnitude due to high loss of the concrete specimen. There-
√ fore, the measurement of S11 and S21 becomes pertinent in this
Γ=X± X 2 − 1, (3) study.

D. Ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) test

X = 1 − v1 v2 /v1 − v2 ,
v1 = S21 + S11 , and v2 = S21 − S11 .
The transmission value, T, can be given as
T = S11 + S21 − Γ/1 − (S11 + S21 )Γ.
Taking only feasible solutions of Eq. (3) such that ∣Γ∣ < 1, Eq. (1)
can be rewritten as
εr = λ0 /2πd(ln(1/T))(1 − Γ/1 + Γ),
where λ0 is the wavelength of the incident signal, Γ is the reflection
coefficient, and d is the thickness of the sample. To understand the
attenuation inside the specimen due to the dielectric losses, we also
computed the attenuation constant, α, as22
√
α = π f tan(δ) ε0 μ0 εr (in Nepers/m) or
√ (8)
α = 0.9106 εr f GHz tan(δ) (in dB/cm),
where tan(δ) is the tangent loss, f is the frequency in Hz, μ0 is
the permeability of free space, and ε0 is the permittivity of the free
space. The transmission value T can also be calculated from the
propagation constant as22
T = e−α⋅d ,
(4) The UPV test equipment provides a means of electroni-
cally generated and transformed waves, which are converted into
mechanical energy by the transmitting transducer that is coupled to
(5) the concrete surface.26 A similar receiving transducer is also placed
on the surface of the concrete at a known distance from the trans-
mitter, and then this mechanical energy is again converted back
to an electrical pulse at the same frequency. This method involves
the measurement of time traveled by the ultrasonic pulse pass-
(6)
ing through a known distance in the concrete specimen (velocity
= distance between transmitting and receiving probes/travel time
of pulses). The pulse velocity may be affected due to the pres-
ence of cracks, honeycomb, water–cement ratio, and dust. There
are three basic ways in which a transducer can be arranged, viz.,
(7) direct transmission, indirect transmission, and semi-direct trans-
mission, among which direct transmission is used in this study. The
direct transmission is the most reliable way to measure the trans-
mitted time in which the maximum pulse energy is transmitted at
a right angle to the face of the transmitter as the path is clearly
defined in this study. In this study, it is used to ascertain the degree
of damages in terms of the quality of the concrete exposed to fire.
An UPV instrument of PUNDIT LAB PLUS of Proceq with the
most commonly used transducers of 54 kHz frequency was used.
However, other transducers with natural frequencies between 20
and 150 kHz are also used with the concrete depending upon the
size of the specimen. The only important factors that are likely to
require the selection of an alternative transducer frequency relate to
the dimensions of the specimen under test. Difficulties arise with
small members as the medium under test cannot be considered as
effectively infinite. Here, the longitudinal stress waves are used in
(9) UPV testing. The wave pattern of the control and fire damaged

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 044710 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045700 92, 044710-3
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FIG. 2. Schematic representation of the experimental setup and data collection
panel.
concrete specimens was recorded. The amplitude and probe gain
were changed to 12 V and 5×, respectively, and the wave velocity was
recorded.
E. Proposed active millimeter wave radar system
In this study, the NRW algorithm discussed previously is used
to calculate the permittivity at ten different slices by using the reflec-
tion and transmission data acquired by the SFCW radar setup as
shown in Fig. 2. The radar range resolution has effectively supported
to calculate the permittivity value for a slice of 1.5 cm. The extent
of damage is evaluated using the permittivity value before and after
the fire damage at different depths inside the concrete specimen
under test (SUT). In Sec. III, the computed permittivity has been
reported for each slice for two grids to demonstrate the proposed
nondestructive damage testing. Two-port free space measurement
has been carried out for the reflection and transmission coefficients
of the concrete specimen using the stepped frequency continuous
wave (SFCW) based radar system. The measurement setup is shown
in Fig. 2. The specimen under test is placed on a wooden 2D scan-
ning platform in the far-field at a standoff distance of R = 50 cm
from the fixed horn antenna. An identical horn antenna is placed
on the other side of the specimen at the same distance of 50 cm
from the specimen. The reflection and transmission measurements
are done using a standard waveguide fed pyramidal horn antenna
and an Agilent Technologies N5247A PNA-X Network Analyzer
Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 044710 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045700
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in the frequency range from 55 GHz to 65 GHz. The VNA cali-
bration is performed until the coaxial cable end using a two-port
open-short-load (OSL) calibration technique with the electronic cal-
ibration kit instead of the mechanical one. Furthermore, time gating
is applied with the calibration of the system to reduce the effect of
diffraction, multiple reflections, and the effect of the near field. How-
ever, time gating can cause errors at the band edges;25 therefore,
the only data acquired from 55.4 GHz to 64.6 GHz are used in the
calculation.
Using this setup, a scan is carried out of the specimen using
201 discrete frequency points. The scanning map on the concrete
cube specimen can be visualized as in Fig. 3. The bandwidth of
10 GHz (55–65 GHz) is used to give the range resolution of 1.5 cm,
and the average swath is ∼25 cm2 at a center frequency, i.e., 60 GHz.
The width of the ground swath is less than the sample size in the
far-field distance of 50 cm, thereby allowing us to have the plane
wave approximation. The details of other system parameters are also
summarized in Table II.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this section, the measured physical, mechanical, and electri-
cal properties of the specimen under test are presented and discussed
in detail for damage detection.
A. Physical and mechanical properties
The residual physical and mechanical properties such as color
change, mass loss, ultrasonic pulse velocity, compressive strength,
and microstructural changes of the exposed specimen are studied,
and the results are compared with the control concrete specimen.
The typical color of the control and concrete specimen exposed
to 800 ○ C is shown in Fig. 4. The color of the concrete specimen
changes from dark gray to whitish gray or white when exposed to
800 ○ C. It is probably due to the decomposition of calcium carbonate
or lime present in the concrete. The average residual mass of speci-
mens was 81.5% as compared to the control specimen. This mass loss
is due to evaporation of pore water, loss of bound water, decompo-
sition of C–S–H, de-hydroxylation of C–H, and conversion of C–H
and C–S–H structures.
The quality of the concrete deteriorates gradually as temper-
ature increases; this is easily identified with the help of ultrasonic
FIG. 3. Concrete specimen: (a) view and (b) scanning map
on the concrete cube.
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TABLE II. Details of the experimental parameters of the millimeter wave radar system.

S. No. Parameters Value Remarks

1 Radar type SFCW Non-destructive testing
Millimeter wave signals for
2 Frequency range 55–65 GHz better penetration and res-
olution
For achieving optimized
3 Bandwidth (BW) 10 GHz
range resolution
4 Transmitted power 0 dBm Low power application
5 Number of frequency points (N) 201 Δ f = 0.05 GHz
Far-field distance for the
6 Standoff distance (R) 50 cm
plane wave approximation
7 Range resolution 1.5 cm RR = 2×BW c

ΔCR = λR D
,where D is the
lateral dimension of the
8 Cross range resolution 1.5 cm synthetic aperture calcu-
lated as D = 10 × 0.015
= 0.15 m
UR = 2×Δ c
f
large enough for
9 Unambiguous range 3m reliable information about
SUT
10 Antenna type Pyramidal horn antenna Mi-Wave’s 261V WR-15
High gain to maintain the
11 Nominal gain of the antenna 25 dBi dynamic range and sensi-
tivity at the SUT side
θv = λ/wa and θh = λ/la ,
where wa and la are the
Angular across-track (θv ) and along-track
12 8.6○ , 6.4○ width and length of the
(θh ) 3 dB beam width of the antenna antenna equal to 3.63 cm
and 4.37 cm, respectively.

W g = θv × R/cos θ, where θ
13 Width of the ground swath (Wg) 6.8 cm is the look angle; here,
θ = 0○ .

pulse velocity.5 Initially, at ambient temperature, the average ultra- The residual mechanical properties of control and fire exposed
sonic pulse velocity of control specimens is found to be 4.615 km/s, specimens are given in Table III. It has been observed that the com-
which corroborates that concrete specimens are denser and com- pressive, tensile, and flexural strength get reduced. This is because
pact. When concrete specimens were exposed to elevated temper- of the decomposition of C–S–H (180–350 ○ C), de-hydroxylation
atures of 800 ○ C, the velocity gets reduced to 1.653 km/s. The wave
patterns of the control and fire exposed specimens were also stud-
ied, as shown in Fig. 5. With the increase in the temperature of
the specimen, the amplitude of the wave decreased drastically and
the probe gain was increased. The probe gain is the measure of the
UPV wave intensity that was sent through the specimens. The probe
gain was increased for fire-damaged specimens to get a wave pat-
tern. The wave attenuation was decreased as concrete specimens
were exposed to fire. This is because of the reduction in density of
the concrete specimens exposed to elevated temperature. At 800 ○ C,
the wave pattern was not clearly observed. The appearance of a low
amplitude signal corresponds to a weak longitudinal wave before the
shear wave. The weak signal corresponds to the scattering of the sig-
nal due to voids in the line of propagation. Hence, the distortions FIG. 4. Color of (a) control and (b) fire exposed (800 ○ C) concrete specimen.
were observed.

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FIG. 5. UPV wave pattern of the concrete specimen: (a) control and (b) fire exposed (800 ○ C) specimen.

TABLE III. Hardened properties of control and fire damaged specimens.

Concrete specimen Compressive strength Tensile strength Flexural strength

designations (MPa) (MPa) (MPa)
Control 42.50 3.15 4.60
Damaged 28.15 1.82 3.15

of calcium hydroxide (450–550 ○ C), and conversion of C–H and measured transformed results, shown in Fig. 7, can be used to
C–S–H structures (700–900 ○ C), and these changes induce cracks, identify the variation between the control and damaged specimen.
and finally, the concrete completely fails. As temperature increases, It is evident from the results that more reflections are observed
concrete specimens become more and more brittle. The con- in the damaged brick as compared with the control one. Simul-
trol specimen exposed to 800 ○ C shows spalling on application taneously, the transmission, i.e., the S21 of the damaged brick, is
of the load. It failed with a loud explosive sound during the lower than the control brick due to irregularities in the medium of
testing. propagation.
The pulse velocity reduces due to the presence of voids,
internal, and surface cracks caused by fire exposure/damages.
This delays the time taken for the ultrasonic waves to travel
through the specimens, which are clearly visible in Fig. 5(b).
The time taken to reach the other face of the fire damaged
specimen was 83.9 μs against 22.9 μs for control specimens, as
shown in Fig. 5(a). This is also corroborated with a signifi-
cant reduction in the mechanical properties of concrete, as given
in Table III.

B. Damage detection using proposed SFCW radar

setup
The reflection and transmission properties of the control
and damaged brick are measured using the system described in
Sec. II. The frequency domain data, shown in Fig. 6, are con-
verted to the spatial domain for extracting the properties at each
particular slice of the specimen. To convert the data to the spa-
tial domain, first the frequency domain data are converted to the
time domain using an inverse Fourier transform. Using the time
FIG. 6. Transmission and reflection properties in the frequency domain.
domain data, the values in the spatial domain are calculated. The

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FIG. 7. Transmission and reflection properties in the time domain: (a) gated measurement and (b) within the control and damaged specimen at different slices.

FIG. 8. (a) Real and (b) imaginary parts of the measured average relative permittivity in the frequency domain. The absolute relative permittivity of each slice in the spatial
domain: (c) real and (d) imaginary parts.

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TABLE IV. Comparison of the proposed system with the UPV test.
Ultrasonic pulse velocity test
UPV Refractive index
Sample (km/s) η = c/v Quality of sample
Control 4.615 0.07 Control
Damaged 1.653 0.12 Severely damaged
Using Eqs. (1)–(7), the frequency dependent permittivity value
has been calculated using the measured reflection and transmis-
sion coefficient values (shown in Fig. 6). It is evident from Eq. (7)
that the permittivity values are dependent on the transmission and
reflection values along with the thickness of the sample. For cal-
culating the permittivity of one slice, the thickness of sample d is
taken equal to the range resolution value of 1.5 cm. The average
of real and imaginary permittivity values for damaged and control
concrete specimens are shown in Fig. 8. It is evident from the real
part of the permittivity that the specimen after being exposed to fire
may have produced damage inside the specimen. The air gaps inside
the material can be identified from the reduced average permittivity
value. The average values are consistent with ITU-R recommenda-
tion,27 and other previous results are available in the technical litera-
ture.28–30 It is apparent from the previous studies that depending on
the composition of the concrete, the dielectric constant values vary
from 3.3 to 5.3 and the loss factor varies from 0.07 to 0.11.23,27–30 In
this measurement, the measured permittivity and loss factor values
are 2.96 and 0.02, respectively. Thereby, the results can be validated
analytically using the permittivity extracted from the measured
results.
After the validation of the calculated permittivity in the fre-
quency domain, the permittivity value is calculated for each slice
FIG. 9. System sensitivity analysis in terms of the dynamic range of the system.
Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 044710 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045700
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Proposed millimeter wave radar assessment system
Mean relative Refractive
√ index
permittivity η = ϵr Quality of the sample
Constant permittivity showing
2.96 1.72
no damage
3.07 1.75 Damaged at various slices
at the center frequency of SFCW radar, i.e., 60 GHz frequency.
Since there is a direct relationship between the number of slices
and depth of the cube, i.e., depth (in cm) = 1.5× slice number,
the change in the permittivity value, shown in Figs. 8(c) and 8(d),
signifies the damage at that particular location in the concrete
specimen. Significant differences have been observed between the
control and fire damaged specimens. It can be observed from the
real part of the permittivity that the damage is less at the cen-
ter of the specimen since the difference is very less at a depth
of 6 cm–9 cm.
The proposed method is quantitatively compared with UPV
test results given in Table IV. Both the techniques can be
correlated based on the change in the refractive index (η),
which can be calculated using velocity in a medium (v) and
dielectric constant of the medium, as given in Table IV.
It is worth noting that the small change in the refractive
index value is significant to identify the change in the spec-
imen. Thereby, the efficacy of the proposed method can be
verified.
C. Measurement uncertainty evaluation
In this study, the major sources of uncertainty in the mea-
surement of permittivity are identified and include contributions
from repeatability of VNA measurement of scattering parameters
along with uncertainty in the thickness of the sample and the mis-
match losses. It is to be noted here that significant efforts have
been made to overcome the noise level during the experiment, such
as (1) gated reflection coefficient of each slice, (2) maintenance of
the cross and downrange resolution, (3) sensitivity analysis of the
setup, (4) appropriate intermediate frequency bandwidth, and (5)
repeated measurements. The S11 values for each grid are compared
with the VNA sensitivity, shown in Fig. 9, which is measured for
every grid of each slice. Here, the five independent measurements
with averaging of S11 and S21 parameters have led to around 6
dB improvement in the sensitivity of the system. A further study
in this regard with different temperature exposures and durations
is required to develop correlation curves. The detailed uncertainty
budget according to the ISO-GUM31 is given in Table V for the cen-
ter frequency and is shown in Fig. 8(c). It is clear from Fig. 8(c)
that the difference between the control and damaged specimens
is significant, irrespective of the uncertainty involved in the mea-
surement. The uncertainty in the measurement is significantly con-
tributed by type A, i.e., the standard deviation of the observations
taken.
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TABLE V. Uncertainty budget for the real part of permittivity measurement at 60 GHz.
Elements of uncertainty
Uncertainty
Type Sources Uncertainty value
A Independent repeated measurements 0.0548
Thickness of the specimen 0.001
B
Mismatch losses 0.0031
√ U-shaped 2
Combined standard uncertainty, U c Uc = ∑3i=1 Ui2
Coverage factor, k 1.96
Expanded uncertainty, U e Ue = k × Uc
IV. CONCLUSION
A nondestructive method based on complex permittivity mea-
surement has been proposed to estimate the damage caused by fire
exposure. The complex permittivity has been extracted from reflec-
tion and transmission scattering parameters measured using a vec-
tor network analyzer. The S-parameters from the concrete block
specimen have been measured before and after fire exposure using
millimeter wave SFCW based radar. The significant change in the
real part of the relative permittivity values indicates the change
in the electrical properties of the specimen. The proposed tech-
nique measures the permittivity of the sample with a resolution of
1.5 × 1.5 cm2 . The measured permittivity data have been successfully
used to locate the depth of the damage in the concrete specimens.
We have validated the proposed method by comparing the measured
average permittivity values with already published results and ITU-
R recommendations. The results are also in good agreement with the
UPV test results.
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