STRUCTURAL HEALTH MONITORING (SHM)

USING ACOUSTIC EMISSION (AE)

(Implementation on Concrete & Reinforced Concrete Bridges)

Teuku Andika R. Putra ST, M.Sc, Ph.D

 PART 1.
FUNDAMENTAL OF ACOUSTIC EMISSION
What is Acoustic Emission?
• Acoustic Emission (AE) refers to the generation of transient elastic waves
produced by a sudden redistribution of stress in a material.
• When a structure is subjected to an external stimulus (change in pressure, load,
or temperature), localized sources trigger the release of energy, in the form of
stress waves, which propagate to the surface and are recorded by sensors.
• With the right equipment and setup, motions on the order of picometers (10 -12
m) can be identified.
What are the applications?
• Detection and analysis of AE signals can supply valuable information regarding the origin and
importance of a discontinuity in a material.
• Because of the versatility of Acoustic Emission Testing (AET), it has many applications. The
major applications of AE techniques are:
• 1) Source location - determine the locations where an event source occurred
• 2) Material mechanical performance - evaluate and characterize materials/structures
• 3) Health monitoring or assessing structural integrity - monitor the safe operation of a
structure, for example detecting flaws on bridges, pressure containers, and pipe lines, etc. as
well as leak detection on relevant structure.
• 4) Health monitoring - monitoring manufacturing process (turning, welding, etc.)
• 5) Health monitoring - corrosion monitoring
• 6) Characterize the source mechanisms such as crack growth, fatigue failure, friction,
delamination, matrix cracking, etc. This would give AE the ability to tell the end user what
source mechanism is present and allow them to determine whether structural repairs are
necessary.
• 7) It can also be generated from sources not involving material failure,
including friction, cavitation and impact.
What are the differences?
• AE pertains to the origin of the signal. Instead of supplying energy to the object
under examination, AET simply listens for the energy released by the object. AE
tests are often performed on structures while in operation, as this provides
adequate loading for propagating defects and triggering acoustic emissions.
• AE deals with dynamic processes, or changes, in a material. This is particularly
meaningful because only active features (e.g. crack growth) are highlighted.
• AE has the significant ability to discern between developing and stagnant defects.
• AE testing usually provides an immediate indication relating to the strength or
risk of failure of a component.
• AE is fast and completes volumetric inspection using multiple sensors, permanent
sensor mounting for process control, and no need to disassemble and clean a
specimen.
 Equipment
• Acoustic emission testing can Transducers Transducer details

be performed in the field with

portable instruments or in a
stationary laboratory setting.
Typically, systems contain a
sensor, preamplifier, filter, and
amplifier, along with Preamplifier

measurement, display, and

storage equipment (e.g. Personal Computer

oscilloscopes, voltmeters, and

personal computers)
Waveguide
Magnet
 Equipment
• Piezoelectric-based sensors are
widely used.
• Sensors are in the range of 20 kHz –
1 Mhz
• Unlike accelerometers, AE sensors
are designed to measure the Sensors
response in any direction. Magnetic holder
• Generally categorized as a i)
broadband and ii) resonance model
(20 kHz: leak detection, 150 kHz:
crack detection etc)
• Installation: Glue, Magnet, Transducers/Sensors
waveguide, etc

ISR6 sensor & cable

 The AE system instrumentation setup in research

Pencil lead
Interface of AEwin software Software display test setup

PCI-2 card The concrete specimen with clip The instrumentation setup of SEB test with
gauge for the SEB test UTM system, clip gauge and AE damage
detection system
AE Schematic System
AE Signals
• AE Signals: continuous signals
• Continuous Signals: low energy, the amplitude of the
emission increases with increasing load.
• – dislocation movements in metals, leak detection
• – sufficient to use the RMS of the AE in a certain time
window or spectral analysis for detection
AE Signals
• AE signal – Burst signals
• Threshold: determine sensitivity
• Amplitude:
• – the highest peak value, usually in the form of
dB_AE = 20 log (Vp/1 micro V)
• – determines the detectability of an AE signal
• – directly correlated to magnitude of the source

• Rise time:
• – Time interval between the first threshold
crossing and the signal peak.
• – Related to the propagation of the wave between
the source and the sensor.
• Counts:
• – number of threshold crossing
• – Widely used to describe an AE activity in earlier
days
• – Provide information on signal shapes
AE Signals
• AE signal – Burst signals
• Duration:
• – Time difference between the first and
last threshold crossings
• – The relationship with Amplitude gives
the information on the signal’s shape
• Measured Area of Rectified Signal
Envelope (MARSE):
• – sometimes referred to as energy counts
• – Most widely used measure of AE activity
• – Sensitive to amplitude as well as
duration, and it is less dependent on
threshold setting and operating frequency
AE attenuation/wave velocity

• Acoustic emission is nothing but

the stress wave propagation
• Subjected to attenuation due to:
• – Geometry spreading effects
• – Scatter at boundary and
discontinuity
• – Material damping
• Wave velocity
• – Typical wave velocity in solids:
1500-6000 m/s
• – Among others, Ao lamb wave
mode is the most important wave
in AE.
AE calibration

• A simulated AE source (Pencil-

lead fracture) is typically used
to determine the degree of
attenuation and wave velocity
for deploying sensors
• Breaking a 0.5 mm 2H pencil
lead
• – Standard Guide for
Determining the
Reproducibility of Acoustic
• Emission Sensor Response
(ASTM E976-84)
Data Display
• Software-based AE systems
are able to generate
graphical displays for analysis
of the signals recorded
during AE inspection. These
displays provide valuable
information about the
detected events and can be
classified into four
categories: location, activity,
intensity, and data quality
(crossplots).
AE Source Location Technique
• Multi-Channel Source Location Techniques:
• AE systems are capable of using multiple
sensors/channels during testing, allowing
them to record a hit from a single AE event.
These AE systems can be used to determine
the location of an event source. As hits are
recorded by each sensor/channel, the
source can be located by knowing the
velocity of the wave in the material and the
difference in hit arrival times among the
sensors, as measured by hardware circuitry
or computer software. By properly spacing
the sensors in this manner, it is possible to
inspect an entire structure with relatively
few sensors.
AE Source Location Technique
• Zonal Location Technique
• zonal location aims to trace
the waves to a specific zone
or region around a sensor.
This method is used in
anisotropic materials or in
other structures where
sensors are spaced relatively
far apart or when high
material attenuation affects
the quality of signals at
multiple sensors.
AE Source Location Technique
• Point Location
• In order for point location
to be justified, signals
must be detected in a
minimum number of
sensors: two for linear,
three for planar, four for
volumetric. Accurate
arrival times must also be
available.
 PART 2.
AE examination of Concrete & Reinforced Concrete Bridges
Bridges
• Bridges contain many welds, joints and connections,
and a combination of load and environmental factors
heavily influence damage mechanisms such as fatigue
cracking and metal thinning due to corrosion. Bridges
receive a visual inspection about every two years and
when damage is detected, the bridge is either shut
down, its weight capacity is lowered, or it is singled
out for more frequent monitoring. Acoustic Emission
is increasingly being used for bridge monitoring
applications because it can continuously gather data
and detect changes that may be due to damage
without requiring lane closures or bridge shutdown. In
fact, traffic flow is commonly used to load or stress
the bridge for the AE testing
Guide for AE examination of Reinforced Concrete Bridges (RCB)

• Assessment of reinforced concrete bridges condition is of a great

importance. A large number of structures fail every year without warning
due to design errors, undetected or misevaluated flaws, low quality of
construction materials and other reasons. Accurate, reliable assessment
and monitoring of structures’ condition is essential for minimizing risk of a
catastrophic failure.

• Different approaches and methods have been developed and applied

during the recent decades for non-destructive evaluation of reinforced
concrete structures. Among these methods, acoustic emission technology
is unique as it not only detects, locates, identifies and assesses flaws in
concrete and metal but is also used for on-line monitoring of structural
integrity under operational conditions, evaluation of operational risk
factors and detection of causes of flaw origination and development.
A guide for acoustic emission examination of reinforced concrete
bridges includes description of recommended test procedures for:

• Flaw revealing, locating, typifying and assessing in bridge structure.

• Evaluating stress levels, stress distribution, and direction of the main stresses in
bridge elements.
• Determination of concrete strength properties and distribution along the bridge
spans and supports and detection of zones with concrete degradation and it
reasons.
• Assessing of pre-stressed conditions of bridge elements.
• Revealing electrochemical corrosion of reinforcement and pre-stressed cables
and quality of cathode protection.
• Revealing and assessing stress corrosion cracking, hydrogen embrittlement of
pre-stressed cables.
• Evaluating conditions of underwater part of supports, possible landslide
displacement, and support instability.
• A number of methods have been developed and standardized in recent decades for
nondestructive evaluation of concrete in structures as well as methods for in-place
evaluation of concrete properties.

• They include visual inspection, stress-wave methods, nuclear methods, penetrability

methods, magnetic and electrical methods, infrared thermography and ground-
penetrating radar.

• Despite multiple advantages, these methods have several important limitations. In most
of the cases they cannot be applied for overall inspection of the concrete structure due
to limited accessibility, high thickness of concrete components or other reasons. Also,
these methods cannot be applied for continues long-term monitoring.

• But the most important limitation of these methods that they cannot estimate how
actively flaws develop, how sensitive they are to operational loads changes and cannot
assess overall stability of the structure. These limitations can be overcome by the
acoustic emission technology
• The purpose of the AE examination is to detect, locate and characterize AE
sources active in the structure under normal operational/loading/environmental
conditions.

• Macro-scopic sources of AE in reinforced concrete bridges that are ready

detected are micro- and macro-crack development in concrete, closure of pores,
fracture of aggregates, frictional noises due to structural movement and/or
instability, rebar corrosion, corrosion of metal parts, corrosion and rupture of
cables and others.

• When proper methods of data acquisition and analysis are developed, and
criteria are elaborated, AE data measured during examination can be used for
identification and quantitative or qualitative assessment of flaw indications.

• In addition to detection of flaw related AE sources, this guide can be used for
indirect assessment of concrete strength, uniformity of concrete properties along
the structure and evaluation of stress distribution in the bridge structure.
• The typical examination of bridge includes the following principal steps:

• Learning structure.
• Investigation of material properties and flaw characteristics.
• Selection of equipment and sensor installation.
• System performance verification.
• AE examination.
• Data analysis.
• Report.
Acoustic emission method enables the testing of the structural
integrity of concrete bridges in following cases:

• Under regular traffic,

• Under nominal moving load (dynamic),
• Under nominal stationary load (static),
• Special cases (during overloading).
 New bridge built of pre-
pre-stressed beams
New pre-stressed bridge tested by AE

Pre-stressed beam (type KUJAN) AE sensor attached to the bottom surface

 Severely Damaged Bridge Built of Post-
Post-tensioned Beams

Monitored bridge built of post-tensioned beams

Existing damages of the tested bridge

Monitoring of a reinforced concrete bridge during overloading
New steel-concrete bridge tested by AE Sensors installed around penetration location
Novel AE technique using fiber optic sensors

Four-point bending test setup and sensor locations

THANK YOU