Vibration monitoring of crack nucleation in reinforced concrete structures

This paper presents an efficient approach to detect crack generation in reinforced concrete structures by vibration monitoring. Our study uses ambient background vibrations to induce vibrations in the structure. Registration of crack nucleation and propagation is based on the analysis of changes in the eiegenfrequencies of structural elements. The constant response of structural elements to background vibrations makes it possible to organize the on-line monitoring of cracks. Mathematical modeling of deformation processes in the structure serves to determine the magnitude of the shift in eigenfrequencies under different cracking scenarios, to identify vibration modes most sensitive to cracking, to find optimal locations of vibration sensors and to define the required registration accuracy. In the experiments, the response to the traffic-induced vibrations was registered at 6 points of the structure.