Acoustic Emission Intensity Analysis for In Situ Evaluation of Reinforced Concrete Slabs

A three-story apartment building on the University of Miami campus in Florida, built in 1947 and scheduled for demolition in the spring of 2011, was used as a research test bed. Two identical strips of the one-way reinforced concrete (RC) slab of the first floor of the building were saw cut and load tested. In parallel with the well-established measurements of load and deflection, a continuous acoustic emission (AE) monitoring was carried out throughout the load test in order to estimate the AE evaluation parameters that relate to RC damage. The analysis of the AE results provides experimental evidence for the validity of AE technology as an assessment tool in the practice of in situ load testing.