Concrete bridges were built originally to have a cost-effective maintenance -free life of 120 years, but work in the UK and USA shows that substantial maintenance is required after 20 to 30 years. This paper presents the description and results of an acoustic emission (AE) monitoring exercise on concrete bridge beams in situ, as part of a larger project aimed to develop an Advice Note on the use of AE to evaluate the structural conditions of concrete bridges.
The fieldwork focussed on the concrete beams on Boghall Bridge, which is located in the Scottish Borders, south of Carfraemill on the A697.
The AE processing described in this paper includes location of the AE sources in terms of the recorded energy and a b-value analysis. From the results one is able to distinguish between the different structural behaviour of the beams – thus showing that the AE method is a promising way to evaluate the condition of an in-situ structure.
Ing. S. Colombo
Prof. M. C. Forde, PhD, FREng, CEng, FICE, FIEE
Both University of Edinburgh, The King’s Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JN, Scotland, UK
Prof. I. G. Main, BSc, MSc, PhD
School of GeoSciences, The University of Edinburgh, The King’s Buildings, Edinburgh Scotland
Jack Halliday, CEng, MICE
The Highways Agency, St. Christopher House, Southwark Street, London SE1 0TE, UK