Acoustic Emission Monitoring of Multicell Reinforced Concrete Box Girders Subjected to Torsion

Abstract

Reinforced concrete (RC) box girders are a common structural member for road bridges in modern construction. The hollow cross-section of a box girder is ideal in carrying eccentric loads or torques introduced by skew supports. This study employed acoustic emission (AE) monitoring on multicell RC box girder specimens subjected to laboratory-based torsion loading. Three multicell box girder specimens with different cross-sections were tested. The aim is to acquire AE analysis data indicative for characterizing torsion fracture in the box girders. It was demonstrated through appropriate parametric analysis that the AE technique could be utilized to effectively classify fracture developed in the specimens for describing their mechanical behavior under torsion. AE events localization was presented to illustrate the trend of crack and damage propagation in different stages of fracture. It could be observed that spiral-like patterns of crack were captured through AE damage localization system and damage was quantified successfully in different stages of fracture by using smoothed b-value analysis.

Experimental Study on A Reinforced Concrete Element to Extract the Durability Index with the Automated Visualization

“…For this manner, several sensors (such as humidity, temperature, pressure, load, potential hydrogen (PH), hardness, chemical composition, Acoustic emission (AE), and others) have been exploited for data gathering and damage detection [7,13]. AE was used for damage monitoring in reinforced concrete structures [4,5]. In this manner, AE applies to highlight internal damage progress [6].…”

A novel damage index for online monitoring of RC slabs under monotonic loading by integration of process controlling into acoustic emission technique

“…To this end, the application acoustic emission (AE) appears to be a robust technique for structural damage diagnosis and reliability analysis for composite structures [4][5][6][7]. AE was used in localization of damage in composite and RC structures [8], prediction of delamination in composite structures [9], crack detection [10], damage assessment [11][12], corrosion, fatigue, creep, fracture modes analysis, and durability [13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. The premise of AE refers to the generation of transient elastic waves during the rapid release of energy from a localized source within a material.…”