Advanced structural health monitoring of concrete structures with the aid of acoustic emission

This article gives a comprehensive review of the acoustic emission (AE) technique for its applications in concrete structure health monitoring. Basic and established condition assessment methods for concrete structures are reviewed to configure a firm perception of AE application for enhanced performance and reliability. The AE approaches of focus are the parametric and signal analysis which can be used to develop damage evaluation criteria. Other than recent localization and source discrimination methods, applications of pivotal AE parameters such as b-value, Ib-value, AE energy, and hit are discussed herein, with highlights on the limitation of the individual parameter-based approaches when adopted on site. In addition, the introduction of new parameters such as sifted b-value, minimum b-value, and Q value is discussed as well, followed by a novel recent strategy for AE application in conjunction with tomography method to facilitate infrastructure assessment. Moreover, the key role of application of artificial intelligence methods towards damage mode identification has been highlighted.