ABSTRACT
Several methods for analyzing acoustic emission (AE) data to classify damage in reinforced and prestressed concrete structures during load tests were developed in the past two decades. The majority of the methods offer relative assessment of damage, for example, classifying cracked versus uncracked conditions in prestressed members during or following a load test. In addition, significant developments were made in various AE source location techniques including one-, two-, and three-dimensional source location as well as moment tensor analysis that allow for accurate location of damage through advanced data filtering techniques. This chapter provides an overview of the acoustic emission technique for detecting and classifying damage during load tests. Recent efforts to apply the method in the field are also presented along with recommended field applications based on the current state of practice.
