A Comparative Analysis of the Rebound Hammer and Pullout as Non-Destructive Method in Testing Concrete

A comparative analysis between Rebound Hammer and Pullout method in testing concrete was conducted in this study. Experimental analysis were carried out to compare the correctness between the two testing method in estimating the strength of concrete. Different cube (cubes of 175 x 175 x 175) samples were prepared using two mix designs of 1:2:4 and 1:3:6 with a constant w/c ratio of 0.45 and were tested at 7, 14, 21 and 28 days. The rebound hammer readings had a correlation coefficient of 0.695 while the pullout had a correlation coefficient of 0.725 for the 1:2:4 mix and the rebound hammer readings for 1:3:6 was 0.724 and that for the pullout was 0.675. From the results obtained, it is observed that the non-destructive testing methods were correlated with the compressive strength results which showed that a higher correlation existed between the Rebound Hammer and the compressive strength than the Pullout. Statistical analysis of the results obtained showed that there was no significant difference between the means of the two methods for both mix at a 0.05 level of significance. However, Rebound hammer method can be recommended as it provides a quicker, less-expensive means of checking the uniformity of concrete even though it shows less sensitivity as concrete matures, unlike the Pullout test in which measuring strength is affected by the arrangement of the embedded insert, the dimensions of bearing ring, the depth of embedment, the concrete age and the type of aggregates uses in concrete.