ACI STRUCTURAL JOURNAL

Title no. 99-S42

TECHNICAL PAPER

Damage Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Beams Qualified by Acoustic Emission

by Masayasu Ohtsu, Masakatsu Uchida, Takahisa Okamoto, and Shigenori Yuyama
Acoustic emission (AE) techniques have been extensively studied in concrete engineering and are currently going to be applied to monitoring concrete structures in service. In order to assess the damage levels of the structures, one criterion based on the Kaiser effect of AE is proposed in the recommended practice recently published by the Japanese Society for Non-Destructive Inspection. New AE parameters of load ratio and calm ratio are defined for qualification of the damages. Accordingly, the feasibility of the damage qualification is experimentally examined using reinforced concrete beams damaged under incremental cyclic loading. It was found that the damages qualified by the two ratios were in good agreement with actual damages of the beams. This suggests that the damages of such reinforced concrete structures in service as bridges, docks, and buildings are quantitatively assessed by simply applying cyclic loading and monitoring AE activity.
Keywords: beam; damage; reinforced concrete.

Fig. 1Classification of damages by two ratios recommended by NDIS-2421. state of the deterioration is necessary for maintenance. The assessment of the damage or the structural integrity in the existing concrete structures, however, is generally neither an easy task nor practically standardized. In this regard, the recommended practice by AE (NDIS2421) is established herein, prescribing one new criterion to assess the damage of reinforced concrete beams and girders in service. The criterion to qualify the damages is proposed as shown in Fig. 1. The damage levels of the structures are classified based on two ratios: the load ratio and the calm ratio, which are defined from the Kaiser effect of AE. Thus, the applicability of the criterion should be examined and confirmed, because it is known that a number of the reinforced concrete structures are going to reach their service life limit. FAILURE MODES AND KAISER EFFECT A relationship between failure modes of the reinforced concrete beams and AE activity was investigated previously,9 and two failure modes are known. One is bending-mode failure. In the beginning of loading, tensile cracks are nucleated at the bottom of a moment span due to bending moment. When the beam is either under-reinforced for bending or fully reinforced against diagonal shear failure, steel reinforcement in the axial direction yields, and tensile cracks are further nucleated and then propagate upward, as shown in Fig. 2(a). AE count rates in a beam exhibiting bending-mode failure increase acceleratedly with increase in loading, as the ordinate is given in the logarithmic scale. The load level where the strain of reinforcement is over 2000 is indicated as a yielding point of reinforcement. The other is called the shear-mode
ACI Structural Journal, V. 99, No. 4, July-August 2002. MS No. 01-270 received August 20, 2001, and reviewed under Institute publication policies. Copyright 2002, American Concrete Institute. All rights reserved, including the making of copies unless permission is obtained from the copyright proprietors. Pertinent discussion will be published in the May-June 2003 ACI Structural Journal if received by January 1, 2003.

INTRODUCTION Acoustic emission (AE) techniques have been investigated in concrete engineering for more than four decades. 1 In addition to quantitative treatment of AE, 2,3 results of AE research are going to be applied to practical use,4-6 and are summarized as a proposed standard.7 This is because the increase in aging structures and disastrous damages due to recent earthquakes urgently demands maintenance and retrofit of the reinforced concrete structures in service. Furthermore, in Japan, accidents resulting from falling concrete fragments delaminated from the concrete lining of tunnels and spalled from railway bridges draw a lot of attention to aging concrete structures. There is a great demand for inspection and diagnosis of existing concrete structures. Accordingly, AE techniques have been actively studied for health monitoring and diagnostic inspection. Some movements toward the standardization of an AE testing procedure are in progress. According to the Japanese Society for Non-Destructive Inspection (JSNDI), the recommended practice for in-place monitoring of concrete structures by AE is currently established8 as NDIS-2421. To assess the damage levels of reinforced concrete beams, one criterion to qualify the damage levels is proposed on the basis of two ratios associated with the Kaiser effect. The feasibility of this practice was examined in this study by testing reinforced concrete beams damaged under incremental cyclic loading. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE Concrete structures in service could be deteriorated due to heavy traffic loads, fatigue, chemical reactions, and other disasters. To fulfill their functions properly, repair and rehabilitation of the structures are eventually required, although these concrete structures have long been considered maintenance-free. As a result, a diagnostic inspection on the current ACI Structural Journal/July-August 2002

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ACI member Masayasu Ohtsu is a professor at the Graduate School of Science and Technology and Director of the International Student Center at Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan. He is an associate member of ACI Committee 228, Nondestructive Testing of Concrete. His research interests include the nondestructive evaluation of concrete structures. Masakatsu Uchida is a chief research scientist at the Central Research and Development Center, Taiheiyo Cement Co., Ltd., Sakura, Japan. His research interests include the application of acoustic emission techniques to concrete structures and the development of the impact echo method. Takahisa Okamoto is a general manager at the Central Research and Development Center, Taiheiyo Cement Co., Ltd. His research interests include shear and torsion behaviors of reinforced concrete members and the development of nondestructive evaluation techniques for concrete structures. Shigenori Yuyama is President of Nippon Physical Acoustics Ltd., Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan. His research interests include acoustic emission (AE) measurement and the application of AE techniques to metallic, fiber-reinforced polymer, and concrete structures.

Fig. 3Schematic illustration of in-place loading test by truck.

Fig. 4AE activity and strain during three cycles of mobile loads.

Fig. 5Sketch of reinforced concrete beams: Specimens B131 and S131. disappears when the values of CMOD due to bending-mode failure become wider than 0.1 to 0.2 mm, or when shearmode failure is observed. It was noted that the values of CMOD over 0.1 mm correspond approximately to the serviceability limit of the reinforced concrete beam. This result again suggests the importance of the failure mode in applying the recommended practice to in-place monitoring. One of the authors previously conducted AE measurement under mobile loads in an aged dock.7 A truck was slowly driven on a platform over a damaged beam of reinforced concrete, as shown in Fig. 3. The dock was 30 years old and had been repaired 5 years earlier. Still, corrosive damage was observed in one beam under inspection, which was a reinforced concrete beam of 5 m in length and of 50 cm in depth. Under three levels of loading: the empty truck (113 kN total), half the load-bearing capacity of the truck (142 kN), and the full load-bearing capacity of the truck (171 kN), AE events were detected by AE sensors of 60 and 150 kHz resonance frequencies attached at the bottom of the beam as shown in Fig. 3. A strain gage was also attached at the bottom center of the beam to estimate a loading history. The results of the strain gage and AE hits measured by an AE sensor of 60 kHz resonance are shown in Fig. 4. Only a few AE events were detected by the sensor of 150 kHz resonance because of ACI Structural Journal/July-August 2002

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2AE-generating behaviors in reinforced concrete beams for: (a) bending-mode failure; and (b) shear-mode failure. failure. When the beam is over-reinforced or slightly reinforced against diagonal shear failure, final failure results from the sudden generation of diagonal shear cracks in the shear span without yielding of reinforcement, as shown in Fig. 2(b). AE count rates are observed at a constant rate because the reinforcement withstands until the final failure. Immediately before the final stage, diagonal shear cracks are observed without any precursors, along with the rapid increase in AE count rates. To examine the feasibility of the recommended practice, these two failure modes were, accordingly, taken into consideration. Concerning AE activity under repeated loading, the Kaiser effect is well known. The effect represents the irreversibility of AE events that are not generated in a material until it is stressed beyond its prior stress state. With respect to AE activity in the reinforced concrete beam, a relationship between crack-mouth opening displacement (CMOD) and the presence of the Kaiser effect was already reported.10 The Kaiser effect 412

Fig. 6Sketch of reinforced concrete beams: Specimens B133, B193, and B194.

Fig. 7Loading setup for Beams S131 (a = 650 mm) and B131 (a = 1000 mm). Table 1Specimen types and loading conditions
Specimen S131 B131 B133 B193 B194 D 13 13 13 19 19 N 2 2 3 3 4 As, cm2 2.53 2.53 3.80 8.59 11.46 l, m 3.2 3.2 3.0 3.0 3.0 h, m 0.2 0.2 0.45 0.45 0.45 b, m 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.2

Fig. 8Crack patterns observed in Beams S131 and B131.

d, m 0.17 0.17 0.40 0.40 0.40

p, % 1.49 1.49 0.50 1.07 1.43

S, m 2.1 2.8 2.7 2.7 2.7

a/d 3.82 5.88 2.25 2.25 2.25

Pi, kN 8.74 5.94 P1, kN 20.7 27.0 29.4

Pu, kN 40.0 26.1 P2, kN 30.9 73.8 96.7 P3, kN 46.6 110.8 145.0

Notes: D = nominal diameter of reinforcement bar; N = number of reinforcement bars; As = area of reinforcement; l = beam length; h = beam height; b = beam width; d = reinforcement depth; p = reinforcement ratio; S = loading span; a/d = ratio of shear span to depth; Pi = load at initial cracking; Pu = final failure load; P1 = load at initial cracking; P2 = load at allowable maximum stress of reinforcement (117.6 MPa); and P3 = load at reinforcement yielding.

attenuation. At the first cycle loading (empty), a few AE hits were observed, and AE activity during unloading was very low. In the second cycle (half-loaded), the Kaiser effect was clearly found, as AE activity was observed immediately after the load increased over the previous strain level, whereas the activity under unloading was fairly active. Eventually, at the third cycle (fully loaded), the Kaiser effect was not observed, as AE activity was quite high during both loading and unloading processes. This result implied that the Kaiser effect is applicable to qualify the damaging levels of the concrete structures in service, by applying mobile loads. To quantify the Kaiser effect in AE monitoring, the Felicity ratio11 and the concrete beam integrity (CBI) ratio7 were proposed previously. In the both cases, the ratio is defined as the ratio of load level where AE events are newly observed in the subsequent loading cycle to the previous load level. Provided that the Kaiser effect is present, the ratio should be equal to 1.0. ACI Structural Journal/July-August 2002

It has also been reported11 that the ratio became lower than 1.0 due to the damage repeated in the reinforced concrete beams. In principle, the undamaged concrete structures are statically stable with high redundancy. Because the Kaiser effect is closely associated with structural stability, the ratio could become larger than 1.0 in a very sound structure. Due to damage accumulation, the ratio decreases to less than 1.0, generating AE events even at lower loading levels than previously. Thus, the ratio is a good indication of the damage accumulation and structural instability. Furthermore, AE activity during unloading is another indication of structural integrity. When the structure is statically stable, AE activity is seldom observed in the unloading process. On the basis of this finding, ratios to estimate the Kaiser effect are redefined in the recommended practice (NDIS-2421) as follows: 413

Fig. 9Loading setup for Beams B133, B193, and B194. (a) Ratio of Load at the Onset of AE Activity to previous loaD: Load ratio = load at the onset of AE activity in the subsequent loading/the previous load; (b) Ratio of Cumulative AE Activity during the unloading process to that of the Last Maximum loading cycle: Calm ratio = the number of cumulative AE activities during the unloading process/total AE activity during the last loading cycle up to the maximum. In practice, damage assessment is proposed to classify the damage levels shown in Fig. 1. Thus, application of damage assessment is examined experimentally in reinforced concrete beams of moderate size. EXPERIMENTS Test specimens and loading Four types of five reinforced concrete beams were tested. The concrete mixture proportion used was as follows: water = 166 kg; cement = 334 kg; sand = 802 kg; and gravel = 1021 kg per 1m3 of concrete. By using an air-entraining admixture, the air content was set at 4.8% per volume, and the slump measured was 14.5 cm. The compressive strength and modulus of elasticity after a 28-day moisture cure were 31.1 MPa and 27.7 GPa, respectively. These were obtained as the average values from three cylindrical samples 10 cm in diameter and 20 cm in height at 28 days. One type of reinforced concrete beam was made without lateral reinforcement, as shown in Fig. 5. To generate the bending-mode and the shear-mode failures in the same type of specimens, the lateral reinforcement against diagonal shear cracks was not arranged, and the loading spans of the two were varied. The others were reinforced concrete beams with full lateral reinforcement, as shown in Fig. 6. Details of the specimens and loading conditions are summarized in Table 1. Specimens S131 and B131 were loaded as shown in Fig. 7, varying the ratio of the shear span to the beam depth (a/d). Four AE sensors were employed as shown. -shaped displacement meters were attached at the bottom to measure the CMOD after initial cracks were observed. As shown in Table 1, the a/d of Beam S131 was as small as 3.82. As crack initiation was observed at 8.74 kN (Pi in Table 1), four incremental loading cycles up to 9.0, 20.0, 30, and 40 kN were selected. The beam suddenly failed in the shear mode at 40 kN (Pu in Table 1). In Beam B131, the a/d was so large at 5.88 that the beam failed at 26.1 kN in the bending mode. At 5.94 kN, initial cracking was observed. Then, five incremental loading cycles up to 6.0, 12.0, 18.0, 26.0, and 26.1 kN were conducted. The crack patterns of the two beams at the final stage are shown in Fig. 8. A diagonal shear failure was observed in Beam S131, while only tensile cracks are observed in Beam B131. Beams B133, B193, and B194 were tested as shown in Fig. 9. Again, -shaped displacement meters were attached at the bottom to measure CMOD. An AE sensor was attached at the center of the top surface. Because all the beams were 414 Fig. 10Crack patterns observed in Beams B133, B193, and B194. designed to fail in the bending mode, four incremental loading cycles were selected. These are: the first cycle up to initial cracking (P1), the second cycle up to the allowable maximum stress of reinforcement (P2) prescribed in the Standard Specification of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers; the third cycle up to reinforcement yielding (P3), and the final. The actual load levels of P1, P2, and P3 are given in Table 1. The load level P2, determined as the stress at reinforcement, was equal to 117.6 MPa, which is prescribed in the Standard Specification. Final crack patterns of the three are given in Fig. 10. It is clearly demonstrated that all of the beams fail in the bending mode, without any diagonal shear cracks in the shear span. AE monitoring According to NDIS-2421, the following requirements are prescribed to properly detect AE signals in concrete: 1. An AE device for concrete usually requires total amplification of approximately 60 to 90 dB. To decrease the effect of on-site noises, a band-pass filter between several kHz and 1 MHz is recommended. The noise should be lower than 20 mV as input; 2. A monitoring system can measure at least some of the following parameters: count, hit, event, maximum amplitude, energy, rise time, duration, energy moment, RMS voltage, frequency spectrum, and arrival-time difference; 3. Elimination of the noises shall be performed by setting the threshold level, filtering, and post-analysis of the data. In all cases, the averaged amplitude of the noise should be managed at lower than 10 mV as input; and 4. Inspection of the operating system should be carried out routinely, checking that the variation of sensitivities in the channels is within 3 dB. The sensor array shall be determined from the attenuation properties of AE waves, setting the distance where attenuation of travel is less than 30 dB. Then, a frequency range from 20 to 100 kHz is recommended for in-place monitoring. Based on these conditions, an AE sensor of 150 kHz resonance frequency was selected. This is because the measurement was carried out in a laboratory. In in-place observation, an AE sensor of 60 kHz resonance is effective due to low attenuation, as was found in the field test shown in Fig. 3. The frequency range was set from 10 to 1 MHz, and the total amplification was an 80 dB gain. For event-counting, a threshold level was set up at 50 dB. Only AE hits, which correspond to the number of AE events observed at one channel, were measured as one AE parameter for the Kaiser effect. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION For AE monitoring of existing concrete structures, it is essential to confirm that any AE signals responsible for the ACI Structural Journal/July-August 2002

Fig. 11AE hits observed under cyclic loading in Beams S131 and B131. damage are not observed under service conditions. When the AE signals detected are due to the deterioration, and not to the noises, the monitoring and analysis should be conducted. The monitoring should be performed continuously or routinely, and sometimes temporarily, after the disasters. A goal of the present research is the routine monitoring of concrete bridges under cyclic loading or mobile loads. To estimate the deterioration process of concrete structures, the following changes in the AE parameters to be measured are listed in NDIS-2421: 1. Sudden increase of AE activity normally detected by counts, hits, and eventsPrior to impending failure, AE activity normally increases. This should be a precursor to main failure for reinforced concrete beams subjected to corrosion of reinforcing steel. Regarding reinforced concrete beams subjected to corrosion of steel, 12 it was found that the total number of AE hits decreases with the increase in the degrees of corrosion. Thus, since an AE hit or count rate itself may not be a satisfactory measure for damage, the conditions of the increase in AE activity should be taken into account, depending on the damage structures; 2. Variation of such AE parameters as RMS, energy, and amplitude distributionIt has been reported8 that the change of amplitude distribution could be useful information in the deterioration process for the periodic inspection; 3. Clustering and concentration of AE locationsApproaching the final failure, an AE cluster is normally concentrated.11 Thus, a flaw-location procedure is available to identify the damaged zone; and 4. AE activity under cyclic loadingThis is a target of the present research. The change in AE activities under cyclic loading is studied to qualify the damages based on the Kaiser effect. The AE activities in Beams S131 and B131 were observed at Channel 3 and are shown in Fig. 11. This is because AE hits were most actively observed at Channel 3, and the trend of AE-generating behavior was similar to those of others in both beams. In Beam S131, diagonal shear cracks were generated at the end of the fourth loading cycle. In contrast, AE activity was continuously observed in Beam B131, even at the fifth loading cycle. In both cases, with the increase in the loading levels, AE activity increases almost linearly in the loading processes. In the process of the loading cycles, AE activity in the unloading process remains more activated than previously. From these data, a relation between the total number of AE hits and the maximum CMOD at each loading cycle was investigated first. The results are given in Fig. 12. The CMODs were measured by six displacement meters crossing one crack (P1 to P6 in Fig. 9), and the maximum ACI Structural Journal/July-August 2002

Fig. 12Relation between total number of AE hits and maximum crack-mouth opening displacement (mm).

Fig. 13Classification of AE data obtained from Beams S131 and B131. of these values was determined. The AE data observed at two AE channels (Channels 2 and 3) were compared. This was because the AE activity at Channel 3 was the highest and was similar to that of Channel 4, while the AE hits were, remarkably, observed at Channel 2 during extension of the diagonal shear crack. With the increase in maximum CMOD, the total number of AE hits increase proportionally with the relation to neither the channels of AE measurement nor the failure mode. Because the tensile cracks were further generated due to yielding of reinforcement, a larger CMOD is observed in Beam B131. This suggests that the total number of AE hits during one loading cycle is closely related to the maximum CMOD, which can be evaluated by visual inspection. 415

Fig. 15Classification of AE data obtained from Beams B133, B193, and B194. initial cracks formed at load level P1, as indicated in Table 1. The two ratios were calculated based on AE data from the first to the second cycle, from the second to the third cycle, and from the third to the fourth cycle (final). The results are shown in Fig. 15, applying the same classification limits as those given in Fig. 13. The damage levels clearly shift from minor to heavy in process of loading cycles. Thus, the feasibility of the criterion is reasonably demonstrated. This implies that the proposed procedure is practically applicable in assessing the damages of reinforced concrete bridges and associated structures. CONCLUSIONS The practice recommended by AE was proposed herein, prescribing one new criterion to assess the damage of the reinforced concrete bridges (beams) in service. Because a number of the concrete bridges are going to reach their service life limit, an applicability of the criterion to qualifying the damage is investigated. The results are summarized as follows: 1. After confirming the applicability of the test procedure that used a mobile-load test, the criterion to classify the damage levels by the two ratios based on the Kaiser effect was experimentally examined in four types of five reinforced concrete beams. It was noted that the AE measurement was conducted to follow the recommended practice; 2. Two types of failure modes were generated in the reinforced concrete beams, and then the relation between the AE activity and the CMODs is studied. The damage levels estimated from the maximum CMOD were in good agreement with the damages qualified by the load ratio and calm ratio. Thus, the damage assessment of the reinforced concrete beams is promising, monitoring AE activity under cyclic loading or in the mobile-load test; 3. In the deterioration process of the reinforced concrete beams with full lateral reinforcement, it is, remarkably, demonstrated that the damage levels qualified by AE data shift from the minor to the heavy in the process of incremental cyclic loading. This clearly implies that the proposed criterion is applicable in assessing the damage of reinforced concrete bridges and associated structures. It was noted that the present study is still limited to laboratory research. Consequently, a field survey of real structures has been planned to carry out the mobile-load test, and a procedure for routine monitoring is under development. Furthermore, the ACI Structural Journal/July-August 2002

Fig. 14AE hits observed under cyclic loading in Beams B133, B193, and B194. At each loading stage, two load ratios and the calm ratio were determined. The data were arranged as a relationship between the calm ratio and the load ratio as shown in Fig. 1. The results are shown in Fig. 13. Based on the maximum CMOD observed in the beams, classification limits are set as 0.9 for the load ratio and 0.05 for the calm ratio. This is because the serviceability limit of the CMOD is less than 0.1 mm in the Standard Specification, and the Kaiser effect was not observed10 in the cases where the CMOD was over 0.1 to 0.2 mm. Into three zones of minor, intermediate, and heavy damage, the plotted data are reasonably classified in good agreement with the maximum CMODs. This implies that the damage levels of reinforced concrete beams can be qualified by the proposed criterion based on the load ratio and calm ratio, monitoring AE activity under cyclic loading or in the mobileload test. It was noted that the limits classified for qualification should be determined in advance based on preliminary tests for practical applications. In the beams studied herein, values of 0.05 for the calm ratio and 0.9 for the load ratio are effective. The AE hits observed in the loading cycles of Beams B144, B193, and B194 are shown in Fig. 14. All of the beams were already damaged after the first cycle, because 416

applicability of the two ratios to heavily damaged structures after many repeated loadings should be examined. REFERENCES
1. Ohtsu, M., A Review of Acoustic Emission in Civil Engineering with Emphasis on Concrete, Journal of Acoustic Emission, V. 8, No. 4, 1989, pp. 93-98. 2. Ohtsu, M.; Okamoto, T.; and Yuyama, S., Moment Tensor Analysis of Acoustic Emission for Cracking Mechanisms in Concrete, ACI Structural Journal, V. 95, No. 2, Mar.-Apr. 1998, pp. 87-95. 3. Ouyang, C.; Lamdis, E.; and Shah, S. P., Damage Assessment in Concrete Using Quantitative Acoustic Emission, Journal of Engineering Mechanics, V. 117, No. 11, 1991, pp. 2681-2698. 4. Ohtsu, M., Diagnosis of Reinforced Concrete Structures by Acoustic Emission, Concrete Journal, V. 38, No. 7, 2000, pp. 10-16. 5. Colombo, S.; Forde, M.; Das, O.; and Halliday, J., AE Experiments on Concrete Beams: General Overview and Research in Progress on Brides, Ninth International Conference on Structural Faults and Repair, 2001, CD-ROM. 6. Watson, J. R.; Yuyama, S.; and Johnson, D, Remote Detection and

Assessment of Damage in Bridges, Proceedings of Ninth International Conference on Structural Faults and Repair, 2001, CD-ROM. 7. Yuyama, S.; Okamoto, T.; Shigeishi, T.; Ohtsu, M.; and Kishi, T., A Proposed Standard for Evaluating Structural Integrity of Reinforced Concrete Beams by AE, Acoustic Emission: Standards and Technology Update, ASTM, STP 1353, 1998, pp. 25-40. 8. Recommended Practice for In-Situ Monitoring of Concrete Structures by Acoustic Emission, NDIS-2421, Japanese Society for Non-Destructive Inspection, 2000. 9. Ohtsu, M., Acoustic Emission Characteristics in Concrete and Diagnostic Applications, Journal of Acoustic Emission, V. 6, No. 2, 1987, pp. 99-108. 10. Ohtsu, M., The History and Development of Acoustic Emission in Concrete Engineering, Concrete Library of JSCE, No. 25, 1995, pp. 121-134. 11. Hearn, S. W., and Shield, C. K, Acoustic Emission Monitoring as a Nondestructive Testing Technique in Reinforced Concrete, ACI Materials Journal, V. 94, No. 6, Nov.-Dec. 1997, pp. 510-519. 12. Yoon, D. J.; Weiss, W. J.; and Shah, S. P., Assessing Damage in Corroded Reinforced Concrete using Acoustic Emission, Journal of Engineering Mechanics, ASCE, V. 126, No. 3, 2000, pp. 273-283.

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