Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 935468, 20 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/935468
Research Article

A Review of Soft Techniques for Electromagnetic Assessment of Concrete Condition

1Parque Tecnológico de Belo Horizonte, Rua Professor José Vieira de Mendonça N 770, Salas 406 e 407, Engenho Nogueira, 31310-260 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
2Departamento Regional da Bahia, Centro Integrado de Manufatura e Tecnologia, SENAI, Avenida Orlando Gomes N 1845, Piatã, 41650-010 Salvador, BA, Brazil
3Departamento de Electromagnetismo y Física de la Materia Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada Campus de Fuentenueva, Severo Ochoa s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain

Received 26 July 2012; Revised 5 November 2012; Accepted 14 November 2012

Academic Editor: Fatih Yaman

Copyright © 2012 F. A. A. Queiroz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This paper describes some efforts to design more efficient analysis for the GPR raw-data interpretation. Such analysis requires algorithms by which problems having complex scattering properties can be solved as accurately and as quickly as possible. This specification is difficult to achieve when dealing with iteratively solved algorithms characterized by a forward solver as part of the loop, which often makes the solution process computationally prohibitive for large problems. The inverse problem is solved by an alternative approach which uses model-free methods based on example data. Measurements with GPR equipment were performed to validate the algorithms using concrete slabs.