ASSESSMENT OF MECHANICAL DAMAGE TO CONCRETE BY ACOUSTIC EMISSION

Abstract

In order to characterize the fracture process zone in quasi-brittle materials, measurements of acoustic emission werecarried on 9 specimens of mortar concrete, which are sub-jected to compressive strength using Wedge Splitting Test(WST). The experimental data are analysed by several dif-ferent statistical approaches. The distribution of acousticevents from the absolute energy, the loading rate, andproximity to the initial notch was used to evaluate the sizeof the FPZ. The results show that the size of the FPZobtained by different methods is similar. The reputability ofthe measurements on the 9 tested specimens indicates goodresults of damage evaluation.