Digital Image Correlation , Acoustic Emission and Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity for the Detection of Cracks in the Concrete Buffer of the Belgian Nuclear Supercontainer

The long term management of high-level and heat emitting radioactive waste is a worldwide concern, as it directly influences the environment and future generations. To address this issue, the Belgian Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials has come up with the conceptual design of a massive concrete structure called Supercontainer. The feasibility to construct these structures is being evaluated through a number of scaled models that are tested using classical as well as state of the art measurement techniques. In the current paper, the results obtained from the simultaneous application of the Digital Image Correlation (DIC), the Acoustic Emission (AE) and the Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV) nondestructive testing techniques on the second scaled model for the detection and monitoring of cracks will be presented.