A Novel Approach to Quantifying the Failure Modes of Concrete-Epoxy Interface

Abubakar Sodiq Ishaq; Yoonju Jang; Donghyeok An; Yoseok Jeong; Ilro Youn

doi:10.3390/ma16062376

A Novel Approach to Quantifying the Failure Modes of Concrete-Epoxy Interface

Materials (Basel). 2023 Mar 16;16(6):2376. doi: 10.3390/ma16062376.

Authors

Abubakar Sodiq Ishaq¹, Yoonju Jang², Donghyeok An³, Yoseok Jeong¹, Ilro Youn¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Construction and Disaster Prevention Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Sangju 37224, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Advanced Science and Technology Convergence, Kyungpook National University, Sangju 37224, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Computer Engineering, Changwon National University, Changwon 51140, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

The failure or debonding of CEIs (Concrete-Epoxy Interfaces) in Fiber-Reinforced Polymer concrete (FRP) systems occurs in one or a combination of three modes: CC (Cohesive failure in Concrete), CE (Cohesive failure in Epoxy), and IF (Interfacial Failure). These failure modes are usually identified, and their relationships are established by human intuition, which is prone to subjectivity. This study proposes a novel method based on image processing techniques to analyze CEI fracture surfaces and evaluate their failure modes. The failure modes of CEI fracture surfaces of specimens from a 3PB (Three-Point Bending) experiment were assessed using an HVS, CIE L*a*b*, YC_bC_r, or RGB color space image segmentation-based image processing technique on the preprocessed images of the CEI failure sides. A manual approach was adopted to validate the accuracy of the proposed method. Comparing the failure mode (CE) obtained using the manual and the proposed methodology, an RMSE (Root Means Square Error) of 0.19, 0.10, 0.23, and 0.26 was obtained for HVS, CIE L*a*b*, YC_bC_r, or RGB color space, respectively. The epoxy area selected with CIE L*a*b* color space produced the most accurate evaluation of the failure modes. This study provides an accurate method of quantifying the failure modes of CEI fracture surfaces. The methodology proposed in this study is recommended for forensic investigations to understand better the possible causes of failure in externally bounded fiber-reinforced polymers.

Keywords: CIE L*a*b*; HSV; RGB; YCbCr; color space; concrete-epoxy interface; fiber-reinforced polymer; fracture surface analysis; image processing; image segmentation.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the BK21 FOUR (Fostering Outstanding Universities for Research) funded by the Ministry of Education (MOE, Republic of Korea) and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) (NO. 5199990214511).