Real-time monitoring of the bridge cable health by acoustic emission and b-value analysis

Bridge cable is an important part of the cable-stayed bridge, and reliable methods are necessary to ensure its safety. This paper proposes an algorithm which realizes real-time monitoring the health of bridge cable by the b-value analysis and acoustic emission technique. The algorithm can eliminate the impulse noise and the continuous noise. Discrete wavelet transform decomposes the AE signal, and then wavelet coefficients are processed. By comparing the b-value with the predefined threshold, the method can monitor the health of bridge cable. And this method can realize the real-time monitoring.