Multitechnique damage monitoring

Abstract

Abstract Acoustic emission (AE), digital image correlation (DIC), and dynamic identification techniques are used to analyze crack formation and propagation in plain concrete prenotched beam specimens subject to three-point bending. Four-dimensional scales are considered, and scale effects on fracture energy, bending strength, and AE energy per unit area are investigated. The energy brittleness numbers are calculated for the different beam sizes to characterize the fragility of the specimens. For the larger sample, the principal strain directions obtained by DIC are put in relation with the crack path, whereas the analysis of resonant frequencies is used to correlate the bending stiffness reduction to the crack advancement.