Identification of internal damages in reinforced concrete slabs using probability density field of acoustic emission events

To assess the structural capacity of reinforced concrete structures, identifying the internal cracks is important. Acoustic emission (AE) is promising to estimate the location of internal cracks. However, the localization is influenced by many factors like arrival time picking error, presence of crack, etc., resulting in localization error. The error cannot be entirely removed. Considering the inevitable localization error, a probabilistic method was recently developed by the authors. The method estimates the probability of the location of AE events, creating a probability density field of AE events (pdAE field). This method can possibly improve the identification of internal damages. This paper evaluates the performance the pdAE field in identifying internal damages in a reinforced concrete slab. The slab was loaded to failure by a point load. Compared to the conventional localization results, the pdAE field showed a clearer internal crack pattern. Moreover, calculation of the pdAE field was time efficient, thus was suitable for real-time monitoring. With these benefits, the pdAE field indicated the failure of the slab before it occurred.