DUAL MODE SENSING OF CRACK GROWTH IN STEEL BRIDGE STRUCTURES

ABSTRACT Monitoring of fatigue cracking in steel bridge structures using a combined passive and active scheme has been approached by the authors. Passive acoustic emission (AE) monitoring is able to detect crack growth behavior by picking up the stress waves resulting from the breathing of cracks while active ultrasonic pulsing can quantitatively assess structural defect by sensing out an interrogating pulse and receiving the structural reflections. The dual-mode sensing functionality is pursued by using the R15I ultrasonic transducers. In the paper, we presented the subject dual-mode sensing on steel compact tension (CT) specimens in a laboratory setup. Passive AE sensing was performed during fatigue loading and showed its capability to detect crack growth and location. At selected intervals of loading cycles, the test was paused to allow for active sensing by pulsing the transducers in a roundrobin pattern. Plate waves were excited, propagated and interacted within the structure. Several approaches were proposed to analyze the interrogation data and to correlate the data features with crack growth. Root means square deviation (RMSD) damage index (DI) was found as a good indicator for indicating the overall crack development. Short time Fourier transform (STFT) provided both time and frequency information at the same time. Moreover, wave velocity analysis showed interesting results when crack developed across the transmitter-receiver path