ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSING DURING FABRICATION AND TRANSPORT OF PREFABRICATED AND PRESTRESSED REINFORCED CONCRETE NORTHEAST BULB TEE GIRDERS

This paper reports on acoustic emission measurements of prefabricated and prestressed concrete beams used in highway bridge construction during detensioning, craned removal from formwork and transport to bridge sites, along with supporting laboratory tests and numerical analysis. Prefabricated, pre-stressed concrete girders used as Prefabricated Bridge Elements and Systems (PBES) are common in Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) and other construction projects but concerns exist regarding the variety of stress/strain conditions experienced by the girder prior to service use. These conditions include curing, form removal, detensioning, camber control loads during storage, transport, and installation and have the potential to cause cracks in the girders. Acoustic Emission (AE) sensing is a non-destructive testing (NDT) technique that has the potential for detecting and locating cracking in prefabricated, pre-stressed concrete girders as part of a Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) program. AE sensing records transient elastic waves produced by the release of stored elastic energy resulting in plastic deformations (i.e., crack nucleation and growth) with an array of point sensors. This paper presents AE data collection of laboratory experiments on relatively small reinforced concrete beam specimens under three-point bending to demonstrate the efficacy of AE in detecting cracks, and then presents application of AE sensing during detensioning, lifting, and transport of full-scale Northeast Bulb Tee (NEBT) girders. The results indicate that AE sensing is a practical QA/QC process for PBES elements as there is observational correlation to observed cracks and AE event locations as well as the AE instrumentation being portable and deployable enough to collect data during both the fabrication and transportation processes.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AFH40 Standing Committee on Construction of Bridges and Structures.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Worley II, Robert L
  • Pereira, Mauricio
  • Dewoolkar, Mandar M
  • Huston, Dryver R
  • 0000-0002-0957-0574
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2019-1-13 to 2019-1-17
• Date: 2019

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 6p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Acoustic emission tests; Cracking; Fabrication; Girders; Materials management; Prefabricated bridges; Prestressed concrete bridges; Quality control; Reinforced concrete bridges
• Uncontrolled Terms: Prefabricated bridge elements and systems
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Construction; Highways; Materials;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01697370
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 19-04072
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 1 2019 3:50PM