Abstract
A reliable novel monitoring approach is developed to assess the structural condition of reinforced-concrete bridge elements. The approach is based on combining acoustic emission technique and strain gauge measurements, and it is illustrated by a case study of a composite steel–concrete viaduct in service since 1957. Monitoring was performed on its reinforced-concrete deck slab under traffic and environmental loading for one year. The monitoring setup and procedure are presented. The variation of acoustic emission signals is evaluated regarding strain and temperature measurements. Parametric study, pencil-break test, statistical analysis, crack classification and b-value analysis are performed to assess the structural condition. The acoustic emission activity of the reinforced-concrete slab is evaluated for 1 year under operational conditions. From the monitoring approach, it was possible to identify the nature of the cracking activity in the concrete slab as a function of traffic loading and temperature and to assess in time the condition of the slab-girder connection.
Highlights
The sustainable and economical use of existing reinforcedconcrete (RC) bridges requires reliable assessment of their current condition under service loading
Pencil lead break testing was performed after setting up the monitoring system to evaluate acoustic emission (AE) activity under traffic and calculate the velocity of stress waves
Time-domain interpretation of AE events was carried out to calculate stress wave velocity based on first arrivals of longitudinal waves, which were clearly observed
Summary
The sustainable and economical use of existing reinforcedconcrete (RC) bridges requires reliable assessment of their current condition under service loading. The assessment of RC decks refers to the early stage assessment of concrete and steel reinforcement condition, as well as the bond between them. The effect of cyclic loading on RC structural elements was investigated in [1, 6,7,8,9,10] Most of these studies were limited to laboratory testing and only few have performed assessment on real structures. The assessment of RC decks requires methods that can give both the structural characteristics and response of RC structural elements under traffic and environmental loading. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been no work performing AE continuous long-term monitoring on RC decks in service and relating the AE response to traffic and environmental changes
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