Development of Prestressed Concrete Bridge Tendon Damage Diagnosis System using Acoustic Emission Technique

In 2016, the prestressed cable (tendon) of the overpass bridge in Seoul was ruptured due to corrosion, resulting in severe traffic congestion, inconvenience and massive economic loss. It is estimated that the prestressed concrete type bridges will reach 1.8 billion USD, which is 50% of the annual budget in whole new bridge construction market in South Korea. Therefore, the efficient and economical inspection and monitoring technology to manage the tendon of the prestressed concrete bridge. The collapse of such structures can be prevented in advance, it is considered that the structural health can be greatly improved. The purpose of this study is to design the acoustic emission monitoring system and to determine optimal sensor type, quantity and installation location. In order to construct a low-cost acoustic emission monitoring system for tendon safety management of aging prestressed concrete bridges, both indoor and outdoor experiments were conducted to collect acoustic emission signals and to analyze its characteristics with several tendon damage scenarios. The final goal was to establish a low-cost system that installs the minimum sensor and detect the tendon damage remotely to the maintenance manager. Keywords: Prestressed concrete bridge, tendon damage, non-destructive test, inspection, monitoring.