Abstract

The debonding of tiles from walls is currently a critical issue in

modern cities. This study develops a non-contact acoustic approach
integrating an effective numerical model for accurate inspection of tile
debonding from a wall, with the aid of a directional sound source and
a laser doppler vibrometer (LDV). Typical engineering tile debonding
cases are characterised and analysed using the non-contact inspection
method. Numerical modelling based on full-field modelling is
performed to simulate and predict the inspection process. In both
experiments and simulations, the acoustic wave with a sweeping
frequency band is generated by the sound source and directed to the
tiles. Activated vibration signals are captured at multiple points on the
tile surface and then processed, and an out-of-surface velocity map of
the tile is plotted to identify the debonding area, where good
agreements between the numerical and experimental results can be
seen. The results show that different shapes of the debonding areas
under the tiles can be well detected, proving the effectiveness of the
method.

Introduction
Currently, with growing numbers of tall buildings being constructed,
the threat of falling tiles is increasing. Defects within the materials will
threaten the duration of the tile structure, resulting in debonding [1,2].
For construction materials, there are two primary causes for the
defects: wear and tear and earthquakes [3]. Generally, earthquake-led
defects are not significant in Australia [4] while wear-and-tear-led
defects are of concern. Many buildings in Australia are several decades
old, thus the wear-and-tear-led defects are already severe. Defects
within the adhesive layer may cause delamination between the tiles
and walls, resulting in tiles debonding and falling off which may
present a severe hazard even at a moderate height to people nearby at
ground level [3]. Previous research has proved that a 250g tile falling
from a 30 m height can generate sufficient energy to cause a fatality
[5]. Since 2016, over 15,500 injuries have been caused by falling
objects in New South Wales alone, including 17 deaths and 200
permanent disabilities [6]. Therefore, regular inspection and
maintenance of tiles are essential.

In practice, nondestructive tests (NDTs) are required to avoid

enhancing the defect. Various tools and techniques have been
developed for the NDT approach, including mechanical, physical,
electrical, chemical, and even visual inspection [7,8]. The NDT method
for tile debonding inspection can be generally summarised into two
categories: contact inspection and non-contact inspection. Contact
inspection, as the name implies, requires direct contact, and some
even require adhesive or drilling holes into the structure [1,[9], [10],
[11], [12]]. Typical contact inspection methods focus on examining
changes in structural response, such as natural frequency, stiffness,
mode shapes and other modal characteristics to detect defects [13],
[14], [15]. For instance, a hammer is often selected as an exciting
source, and accelerometers are used to measure the vibration, where
data processing methods are correspondingly essential to successful
inspection. Shukla and Koo [16] monitored structural integrity of a
Thermal Protection System (TPS) tile for the space shuttle by tracking
the shift in net stiffness, but this method cannot measure the location
and level of the damage. Saadatmorad et al. [17] used one-dimensional
discrete wavelet transform (1D-DWTs) to analyse the Pearson-based
correlation coefficients between the damage and intact mode shapes of
the steel beam. The location of the damage in the damaged beam can
be detected with this method. With the development of computer
science, various machine learning methods have been developed for
data processing. Thobiani et al. [18] used artificial neural networks
(ANN) to predict the crack length in a cracked plate based on both
static and dynamic analyses, where the Grey Wolf Optimisation
(GWO) and improved GWO using Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO)
(IGWO) were used to optimise the ANN parameters. Ho et al. [19]
compared the mode shape-based damage index (MSDBDI) obtained at
different inspection points to locate the damage position in a bridge
deck, then used the Antlion optimiser artificial neural networks
(ALOANN) to predict the damage level by analysing shifts in
frequency and changes in displacement mode shapes at these points,
where Finite element (FE) models were used to assess the accuracy of
this two-step method. Minh et al. [20] developed a K-means Optimizer
(KO) to address the structural damage identification (SDI) problem.
The damage severity within a complex concrete structure can be
predicted using this method. However, in most studies, the contact
inspection equipment is attached on the surface area, which requires
time to operate it [11,12]. In contrast, non-contact inspection uses
remote excitation and its deployment time is more rapid [21], [22],
[23]. In practice, a remote inspection method can provide a safe
working environment for workers while being highly inspection
efficient. As a result, the non-contact approach is more suitable for
inspecting tiles.

Different techniques of non-contact inspections have their own

advantages and limitations. Visual quality inspection and computer
vision are intuitive approaches, but with these methods only cracks
and damage on the surface of the tile can be inspected [24,25]. Active
thermography is widely used in detecting materials that have low
thermal conductivity, but it requires a heating system, which is too
bulky to be used in field-based inspection [26], [27], [28];
Radiography methods such as X-ray or gamma-ray inspection can
detect a defect deep inside the material, but this kind of method
requires special facilities and vehicles to store and deliver the
equipment, and without appropriate protection they pose a risk to the
safety of workers [11,29]. Commercial equipment such as the impact
hammer and ground-penetrating radar is widely used in field work,
but tiles cannot be inspected at a long distance with these methods
[30,31]. Therefore, the acoustic method using laser doppler
vibrometer (LDV) and pressure wave was developed. A specific
pressure wave can be generated by the acoustic transducer and this
then excites the surface of the tiles. Studies have proved that even a
small directional acoustic transducer could be used to detect a
relatively large scope of defective parts on concrete from a long
distance [23,32,33].

The traditional method of data acquisition involves an accelerometer

to measure the vibration signal. This equipment is used with contact
inspection, and it generates a mass loading on the surface. As a result,
relevant uncertainty will appear in modal parameter estimation. The
mass loading will change the resonance frequency of the surface,
especially for light or highly damped non-linear material (e.g., rubber)
[34]. When considering a system with one degree of freedom (DOF),
the resonance shift �� can be calculated via
Eq. (1):��=�0−��,∴���0=1−��+��where �0 is the original resonance
frequency of the system, �� is the resonance frequency after adding
the accelerometer, m is the original mass of the system, and �� is the
mass of the accelerometer. According to Eq. (1), only if the system is
very simple (all the mass is clearly measured) can the resonance
shift �� be corrected. In practice, the mass of the structure may not be
easy to measure, and the system may also be more complex than one
DOF.
To avoid introducing this uncertainty, the laser doppler technique was
developed. The LDV equipment used in this study produces a high
spatial resolution with non-intrusive measurement. It can measure the
vibration of the structure remotely (at distances smaller than 30m)
[34]. Sugimoto et al. [35,36] used a sound source mounted on an
unmanned aerial vehicle that was used to inspect debonding of large-
size tiles on walls. However, Sugimoto et al. only considered one type
of debonding cases, i.e., a circular debonding area. In practice, tile
debonding areas usually possess different geometries. Besides, the
resolution of most current acoustic methods is not good enough to
inspect small-size debonded tiles. In addition, most of the current
work has been performed on experiments without much numerical
analysis [37].

The aim of this work is to study the behaviour of different debonding

shapes using both numerical simulation and experiment
measurement. First, a numerical model based on the actual structure
is generated. The FE model of tile and adhesive layer with
corresponding material properties is established. The propagation of
the sound pressure is simulated, and the vibration signals excited by
pressure waves on the surface of the tile are recorded. Then, actual
experiments are also generated in this investigation. An acoustic
inspection method based on a directional sound source and an LDV is
examined. The directional sound source can generate a maximum
sound pressure of 110dB, and the exciting signal is selected as a
multitone burst (MTNB) wave [35]. The LDV equipment can detect
the vibration signal from a long distance (less than 30m). Five
different shapes of tile debonding on concrete board are examined,
and the surface vibration velocity maps are plotted and compared with
the simulation results.

Section snippets

Methods
As a non-contact inspection method, a directional acoustic transducer
is used as a sound source and an LDV is employed to record the
vibration signal. At a point on a surface, the sketch-up of this method
is summarised in Fig. 1. The tile is attached to the concrete wall via a
tile construction adhesive. Some part of the adhesive layer is removed
to simulate the debonding area. The distance between the sound
source and the tile is 1m. When the pressure wave generated by the
sound source reaches

Results and discussion

The maximum peak resonance frequencies in the FFT at all inspection
points of each tile are summarised in Table 3.

Then the velocity amplitudes of the maximum resonance frequency at

all 36 inspection points are collected, and the corresponding
amplitudes are plotted on a map.

In practice, the situation is more complex. Noise, including the noise

of the LDV and the workplace, will also be collected by the LDV
equipment. As the control group, the out-of-surface velocity map of
the normal tile is

Conclusions
In this study, a non-contact inspection method is developed to inspect
debonding of tiles on a wall, using a laser doppler vibrometer and
acoustic wave of a sweeping frequency band, based on the activated
vibration behaviour of the tiles with and without debonding. The
velocity amplitudes in the frequency domain at multiple points are
plotted to construct a velocity contour map to identify the debonding
area. Based on the experiments, the velocity contour maps correlate
well with the actua