A nondestructive testing technique: Nail penetration test

This study presents a practical nondestructive testing (NDT) method: the nail penetration test (NPT). The major tools of the test technique are a gas nailer with 130 J (95.88 ft-lbf) power, concrete nails, and a gas nailer cell. The study covers three different limestone aggregate types. Six concrete mixtures were prepared from each aggregate type. Five nail shots were performed on each concrete mixture (or grade) and the average value was obtained. The average nail penetration depths were correlated with the compressive strength of concrete. Other NDT techniques, such as the Schmidt rebound hammer (SRH), ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), and Windsor probe (WP), were also applied to concrete samples. The measured compressive strength values were compared with those obtained from the empirical relationships using the data from the NPT, SRH, UPV, and WP. It was found that the reliability of the NPT to estimate the compressive strength of concrete is very high. The tool employed in the investigation covers a relatively wide range of compressive strength of concrete. This testing tool is proposed to estimate the compressive strength of in-place concrete.