4. Maturometry

4.1 Objectives and principle of the maturometry method

A variety of equipment and methods are now available on construction sites to replace the crushing of information specimens (specimens used to check that the required strength has been reached for form stripping or prestressing) by indirect evaluation of this strength, using Arrhenius' law, based on temperature recordings (by thermistors or thermocouples embedded in the concrete) of the structure.

Arrhenius' law, which applies remarkably well to a large number of chemical reactions whose speed depends on temperature, expresses that the speed of the reaction is related to temperature by an exponential, as follows: $\dot{\alpha }=\frac{\text{d}\alpha }{\text{d}t}=f\left(\alpha \right)\text{exp}\left(-\frac{E}{RT}\right)$