Damage assessment of corrosion in prestressed concrete by acoustic emission

► Development of Acoustic Emission (AE) techniques for damage detection. ► Applications of AE to concrete reinforced structures including pipes. ► Successfully detected and located corrosion and wire cracking in laboratory. ► Characterised microcracks, macrocracks and crack movement with AE. ► Engineering solution developed for early stage corrosion detection. Damage due to corrosion is most common in reinforced and prestressed concrete structures. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and detection of corrosion and cracks in initial stages is very important to avoid catastrophic failure. This paper reports on using the Acoustic Emission (AE) technique to detect and locate the early stages of corrosion and macrocracks and furthermore classify different crack types to aid maintenance priorities. The results presented indicate that AE is capable of detecting corrosion, macrocracks and crack propagation in representative structures. In addition, it can distinguish between tensile cracks and shear movement.