Diagnostic of fatigue damage severity on reinforced concrete beam using acoustic emission technique

Fatigue damage assessment using non-destructive testing on structures as well as reinforced concrete (RC) beam has become an attention for recent decades. In this paper, diagnostic of fatigue damage in RC beams using acoustic emission (AE) technique was investigated. Based on severity analysis of AE signal strength during service life of the beams, bath–tub curves derived from AE signal are presented and divided into three stages; burn-in, steady state and burn-out. At the same time, deflection in the RC beams also has been analyzed.