Image Processing Approaches for Identifying Cracks in Concrete Structures

Cracks on the concrete surface are one of the early identifications of the structure deterioration, which is important for maintenance and may cause serious environmental harm if left untreated. In addition to detracting from the aesthetics of monolithic construction, cracks in concrete structures may indicate serious structural issues. Such damage can appear as minor or severe cracks that eventually develop and cause the structure to collapse or to be destroyed. Manual visual inspection of cracks is a time-consuming and error-prone process. The crack is invisible during manual visual inspection, which is time-consuming and entirely dependent on the expertise of specialists and experienced inspectors. Hence, automatic image-based crack detection is employed to replace manual inspection. Automated crack detection techniques may significantly reduce the amount of time and money spent on structural health inspection and monitoring. Inaccessible areas of a concrete structure may also be easily maintained using crack detection based on image processing. To determine how well the proposed algorithm performs and how well it overcomes the limitations of the current manual technique, it has been tested against a variety of cracks in concrete structure images. This paper presents an innovative method for detecting cracks in concrete structures using image processing.