Report rep042 : Acoustic Emission and Related Non-destructive Evaluation Techniques for Crack Detection and Damage Evaluation in Concrete - Final Report of RILEM Technical Committee 212-ACD

RILEM Technical Committee 212-ACD: Acoustic Emission (AE) and Related Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Techniques for Crack Detection and Damage Evaluation in Concrete, was set up in 2004, and then has been working for five years. Based on active collaboration, intensive research has been carried out at several institutes in Japan, at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, University of Edinburgh in U. K., Stuttgart University in Germany and others in Europe. Many of the achievements have been published in a variety of workshops, symposia and conferences. This paper summarizes the work performed in the technical committee (TC), briefly introducing three drafts of RILEM recommendations made up. One is the standardized AE measurement in concrete, another is the test method for qualifying the damage of reinforced concrete beams by AE, and the other is the test method for classifying active cracks in concrete structures by AE.

Acoustic emission (AE) is an inspection technique by means of detecting elastic waves due to dynamic motions at such AE sources as cracking, delamination, cleavage, and fretting in a material. Concrete structures could deteriorate due to heavy traffic loads, fatigue, chemical reactions, unpredictable disasters, and poor workmanship. Eventually, retrofit and rehabilitation of the structures are recently in heavy demand all over the world, although the concrete structures have long been referred to as maintenance-free. It results in the need for the development of advanced and effective inspection and monitoring techniques prior to repair works. Focusing on AE techniques, therefore, collaborated research has been extensively conducted, and thus fruitful results lead to the three recommendations.

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