ABSTRACT
Acoustic emission (AE) techniques have been extensively studied in concrete engineering. As the state of the art, corrosion activity in reinforced concrete, damage of concrete members in service, and cracking mechanisms inside concrete are able to be quantitatively evaluated. ContinuousAEmonitoring is useful for earlier warning of corrosion in reinforcement. Onset of corrosion in reinforcement and nucleation of corrosion cracking in concrete are readily identified. In order to assess the damage levels of the structures, one criterion based on the Kaiser effect ofAE is proposed as the recommended practice. AE parameters of the load ratio and the calm ratio are applied to qualify the damage. The applicability is examined by testing asbestos-cement pipes under incremental-cyclic loading. Crack kinematics can be identified by the SiGMA procedure based on the moment tensor analysis. Because kinematical information is obtained as three-dimensional (3-D) locations and vectors, 3-D visualization has been developed. These updated results are discussed and summarized.
