Sponsor
The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) provided funding for this study through sponsorship of their Research project SPR 802.
Published In
Journal of Civil Structural Health Monitoring
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-4-2025
Subjects
Ultrasonic Stress waves -- concrete bridges
Abstract
Effective monitoring of reinforced concrete structures requires techniques that detect early-stage material change and active, localized cracking. This study investigates a combined structural health monitoring approach using passive acoustic emission and active ultrasonic methods on a full-scale reinforced concrete bridge column subjected to reverse-cyclic lateral loading. Active monitoring, based on coda wave interferometry, was used to track changes in wave velocity and waveforms, while passive acoustic emission monitoring was used to detect crack activity. The instrumentation consisted of three embedded ultrasonic transducers and three surface-mounted acoustic emission sensors. The results show that active ultrasonic monitoring is most effective prior to visual damage, successfully detecting the onset of internal cracking via wave velocity decreases exceeding 0.4%, and distinguishing load-induced effects from permanent damage. However, its utility diminished in later stages of damage progression, as strong signal decorrelation hindered further data interpretation. Additionally, active US measurements allowed a comparison of damage severity in different parts of the column. Conversely, passive acoustic emission monitoring effectively tracked the formation of concrete cracks throughout the experiment, with distinct event clusters and high-amplitude signals (> 60 dB) confirming ongoing fracture processes in all damage states. This study confirms that combining these methods results in a more robust structural health monitoring strategy by leveraging their complementary strengths. Active techniques excel at tracking continuous material changes in early damage states, while passive methods are superior for detecting discrete cracking events as damage progresses. Importantly, both methods can utilize the same measurement equipment, enabling a cost-effective approach to continuous damage tracking.
Rights
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
DOI
10.1007/s13349-025-00996-w
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44026
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation Details
Epple, N., Schumacher, T., Murtuz, A. K. M. G., Niederleithinger, E., & Dusicka, P. (2025). Combined passive and active ultrasonic stress wave monitoring of a full-scale laboratory reinforced concrete bridge column subject to reverse-cyclic lateral loading. Journal of Civil Structural Health Monitoring.