Acoustics and temperature based NDT for damage assessment of concrete masonry system subjected to cyclic loading

This paper represents a hybrid non-destructive testing (HNDT) approach based on infrared thermography (IRT), acoustic emission (AE) and ultrasonic (UT) techniques for effective damage quantification of partially grouted concrete masonry walls (CMW). This integrated approach has the potential to be implemented for the health monitoring of concrete masonry systems. The implementation of this hybrid approach assists the cross validation of in situ recorded information for structural damage assessment. In this context, NDT was performed on a set of partially grouted CMW subjected to cyclic loading. Acoustic emission (AE) signals and Infrared thermography (IRT) images were recorded during each cycle of loading while the ultrasonic (UT) tests were performed in between each loading cycle. Four accelerometers, bonded at the toe of the wall, were used for recording waveforms for both passive (AE) and active (UT) acoustics. For the active approach, high frequency stress waves were generated by an instrumented hammer and the corresponding waveforms were recorded by the accelerometers. The obtained AE, IRT, and UT results were correlated to visually confirm accumulated progressive damage throughout the loading history. Detailed post-processing of these results was performed to characterize the defects at the region of interest. The obtained experimental results demonstrated the potential of the methods to detect flaws on monitored specimens; further experimental investigations are planned towards the quantitative use of these NDT methods.