AE Monitoring for Damage Assessment of RC Exterior Beam-column Subassemblages Subjected to Cyclic Loading

This paper ascertains that Acoustic Emission (AE) monitoring is very effective for assessing the damage of reinforced concrete wide beam-column connections subjected to earthquake-type loadings. A cyclic test is conducted on an exterior connection until its failure. The experimental results show a strong correlation between the hysteretic strain energy and the AE energy histories. For this reason, a tentative formula is proposed, to predict the level of damage and the closeness to failure of the connection on the basis of the AE recorded by one piezoelectric sensor located near the critical zone (i.e., the beam-end and beam-column joint).