Evaluation of bridge cables corrosion using acoustic emission technique

Abstract

Owing to the nature of the stress, corrosion of bridge cable may result in catastrophic failure of the structure. However, using electrochemical techniques isn't fully efficient for the detection and control on line of the corrosion phenomenon. A non-destructive testing method based on acoustic emission technique monitoring bridge cable corrosion was explored. The steel strands were placed at room temperature in 5% NaCl solution. Acoustic emission (AE) characteristic parameters were recorded in the whole corrosion experiment process. Based on the plot of cumulated acoustic activity, the bridge cables corrosion included three stages. It can be clearly seen that different stages have different acoustic emission signal characteristics. The AE characteristic parameters would be increased with cables corrosion development. Finally, the bridge cables corrosion experiment with different stress state and different corrosion environment was performed. The results shows that stress magnitude only affects the bridge cable failure time, however, the AE characteristic parameters value has changed a little. It was verified that AE technique can be used to detect the bridge cable early corrosion, investigating corrosion developing trend, and in monitoring and evaluating corrosion damages.