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Proceedings of the National Seminar & Exhibition on Non-Destructive Evaluation

NDE 2009, December 10-12, 2009

An experimental Study on Acoustic Emission Energy and Fracture Energy of Concrete

R. Vidya Sagar
Department of Civil Engineering, I.I.Sc., Bangalore-560 012, India E-mail : rvsagar@civil.iisc.ernet.in

Abstract
An experimental study has been carried out using geometrically similar notched plain concrete three-point bend (TPB) specimens of different sizes and the acoustic emissions (AE) are monitored during fracture process. In the present study, measurement of the AE energy released during the fracture process of plain concrete beams is carried out. A monotonically increasing load applied on a series of concrete beam specimens of different sizes with different strength. While testing concrete specimens for fracture energy, AE energy release was monitored at the same time. An attempt has been made to relate AE energy and size independent specific fracture energy of concrete. The experimental study show that it may be possible to get an idea about the fracture energy from the measured AE energy.

1.

Introduction

Because cement concrete is an important material, fracture and failure of concrete has been the subject of widespread research[1]. Much has been said in literature about the fracture energy of concrete and its importance. Many important structures like nuclear containment vessels contain very thick concrete components of the order of a metre in size. Certainly size effect should be present in such structures. It is known that size effect lowers the tensile strength and the material tends to be brittle [1]. Therefore fracture energy needs to be determined in order to assess the brittleness of such structures. The fracture energy of concrete is a basic material property needed to understand fracture initiation and propagation in concrete. Whether fracture energy is size dependent or not is being discussed earlier by researchers [1-4]. Strictly the fracture energy if taken as a material property should be constant, and should be independent of the method of measurement, test methods, specimen shapes and sizes. Earlier researchers concluded that fracture energy varies with the size and shape of the test specimen [1]. Researchers studied the size effect in concrete and various models are proposed [1]. To a large extent these research works are aimed at the explanation why the fracture parameters such as fracture energy, CMOD vary with the specimen size [1]. In a few models, for example local fracture energy model proposed by previous researchers dealt with the possibility of constant fracture energy of concrete[2-3]. One important point related to fracture process in concrete is it is necessary to understand the relationships between micro structural phenomena and corresponding effects on macroscopic behaviour. And also microstructral performance relationships are the important aspects to understand the material behaviour clearly under different loading conditions [6]. Acoustic emission energy (AEE) is related to fracture energy by previous researchers in the past [6]. Therefore it

may be supposed that AE energy also should be size dependent to fracture energy. In order to obtain a size independent AEE the concept adopted earlier by previous researchers is used in the present study [2-3]. Having obtained the energies, fracture energy and AE energy, both size independently their ratio is obtained, so that only by knowing the AEE the size independent fracture energy can be determined.

2. Experimental data analysis

The experimental data analysis consisted of calculating fracture energy for each specimen using the RILEM method of Hillerborg, using fictitious crack model and analyzing size independent AE energy of concrete [10,5]. Acoustic emission activity is attributed to the rapid release of energy in a material, the energy content of the acoustic emission signal can be related to this energy release [7-9]. The true energy is directly proportional to the area under the acoustic emission waveform[7-9]. In the present experimental study it was considered that the energy of an electrical signal is proportional to the square of the voltage, so in a simplified analysis it is necessary to square and integrate the recorded voltage transients for each channel [8-9].

(1)

t0 t1

= = =

the recorded voltage transient V(t) of a channel the starting time of the voltage transient record the ending time of the voltage transient record

In the experimental study the authors obtained AE energy by summing up of all the AE energy release values

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Vidya Sagar : Proceedings of the National Seminar & Exhibition on Non-Destructive Evaluation

of 8 channels to get the cumulative AE energy release. It is obvious that the crack propagation starts from the pre-defined notch tip. So, the AE transducers are placed near to the notch.

cured beam using a concrete cutting machine. Three identical specimens for each notch/depth ratio and same size were tested(total 27 specimens). The notch width was around 7mm. The specimens were demoulded after 24 hours of casting and cured by immersing them in water. 3.3 Experimental setup The experimental setup consists of a loading frame with data acquisition system. Three point bend plain (TPB) concrete specimens of similar geometry with different (notch/ depth) ratios are tested. The loading frame is a material testing system (MTS) with data acquisition and all the specimens are tested under crack mouth open displacement (CMOD) control at a rate of 0.0004 mm/sec. The midspan downward displacement was measured using linear variable displacement transducer (LVDT), placed at center of the specimen under bottom of the beam. A clip gauge was used to measure the CMOD. The maximum load was reached in about 5 minutes following RILEM recommendations (1991). The data acquisition records load, CMOD, midspan displacement and time. The AE instrument used in the present study is a 8 channel AEwin for SAMOS (Sensor based Acoustic Multichannel Operating System) E2.0 system. AE test set up consists of AE sensors, preamplifiers, processing instrumentation, and AE win SAMOS software supplied by PAC. The transducers used in the experimental study were R6D resonant type, AE differential transducers [11]. In general differential sensors are used in environments where very low level AE signals need to be processed and is also very applicable in high noise environments. The AE transducers (R6D) have peak sensitivity at 75 dB with reference 1V/ (m/s). The operating frequency is 35 kHz 100 kHz. An essential requirement in mounting a sensor is enough coupling between the sensor face and the concrete test specimen surface [7,11]. Vacuum grease LR ( high vacuum silicon grease) was used as couplant in the present

3. Experimental program
3.1 Materials The compressive strength of six concrete mixes used is 78 MPa. Crushed granite aggregates of maximum size 20 mm as coarse aggregate and river sand as fine aggregate and Portland cement of grade 43 conforming to IS: 8112-1689 was used in the experimental program. A sulphonated naphthalene formaldehyde type super plasticizer and silica fume were used as admixtures in order to improve the workability of concrete. Crushed ballast Cubes and cylinders were also cast along with the TPB specimens for determination of compressive strength. 3.2 Specimen preparation The dimensions of all TPB specimens used in the present experimental study conform to RILEM (Reunion Internationale des Laboratoires dEssais et de Recherches sur les Matriaux et les Constructions) recommandations [1]. Span to depth ratio of the TPB specimen is 3 and thickness of the TPB specimen is 80 mm. Three TPB specimens were tested for each of the three notch to depth ratios (a0/d=0.15, 0.30 and 0.50). The specimens of all sizes were cast from the same batch of concrete. The quality of the concrete was uniform as possible. Details of the specimens tested in this present experimental study were given in Table. 1. The moulds were filled with concrete in three layers and each layer was compacted well using a needle vibrator. The specimen was loaded at mid-span by a concentrated load and was simply supported over span S. A notch of depth a0 is cut into the

Table 1 : Details of the TPB specimens tested

Concrete Specimix men Notchdetails Specimens Sensor type (resonant) L 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 R6D 1010 960 80 320 R6D 530 480 80 160 R6D 290 Dimensions of the specimens (mm) S 240 t 80 d 80 Sensors position from centre of the notch (mm) r 32 28 20 65 50 40 130 110 80 28 20 s 32 28 20 65 50 40 130 110 80 28 20

(a 0 ),mm Small 12 24 40 Medium 24 48 F-Mix Large 80 48 96 160 24 40

a 0/d 0.15 0.30 0.50 0.15 0.30 0.50 0.15 0.30 0.50 0.30 0.50

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Fig. 1 : Typical recorded load-CMOD, load-time and load-displacement diagrams.

experimental study. Before mounting the sensors on testing specimen, the sensors surface was cleaned so that to make sure about allowing maximum couplant adhesion. Application of a couplant layer was thin, so it can fill gaps caused by surface roughness and eliminate air gaps to ensure good acoustic transmission. And all sensors were held firmly to the testing surface. The threshold value of 40 dB was selected to ensure a high signal to noise ratio[7,11].

for 1-(a0/W) >al/W

(2)

for1-(a0/W) (al/W)

(3)

4.

Calculation of size independence acoustic emission energy of concrete (EF)

By using the model of Duan et al and concept given in reference[2-3] and using Eq.(2) and Eq.(3) which are analogous to the method adopted by Abdalla and Karihaloo(2003), Duan et al(2001), the size independent acoustic emission energy (EF) can be calculated by using the acoustic emission energy (Ef) released during the concrete fracture [2-3] which are shown in Table.2. The model assumed that that fracture energy required to create a crack along the crack path is influenced by the size of the fracture process zone and also boundary of test specimen influences the size of the fracture process zone [1-2].

The acoustic emission energy values recorded during the TPB tests were substituted into Eq.(2) and Eq.(3) in order to determine the size-independent acoustic emission energy EF and transition ligament length (al )AE. There are three values Ef(a0/W) for different sizes at each notch/depth ratio. By knowing Ef(a0/W), the size independent fracture energy EF is obtained for different sizes of TPB specimens. As the number of results of Ef(a0/W) for each depth W and notch to depth ratio was 3, but the number of unknowns are EF and (al )AE, the system of three equations was solved by least squares method to get the best estimate of EF and (al)AE. The two variables (al)AE and EF were obtained from the three equations by the least squares method, because the equations set of were over determined. Fig.2(a) shows a plot

Table 2 : Measured fracture energy and AE energy from three point bend test
Fracture Energy (N/m) a0/W 0.15 0.30 0.50 0.15 0.30 0.50 0.15 0.30 0.50 W mean 80 80 80 160 160 160 320 320 320 112.5 123.1 90.5 128.9 108.6 100.7 133.4 122.3 117.1 COV(%) 22 16.5 10.2 2.9 14.6 3.8 12.1 5.6 16.2 Mean 219.5 102.5 42.6 201.5 117.4 79.5 327.1 209.5 225.5 COV(%) 35.0 31.5 63.8 24.7 42.1 15.1 34.4 33.6 11.3 AE energy(relative units)

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It was observed that AE events containing higher energy located around the notch tip. It may be useful to relate acoustic emission energy to fracture energy of concrete. This relationship may be useful to develop a laboratory tool. This laboratory tool could be useful to study the damage in concrete structures. The authors opinion is that this laboratory tool can be used in a laboratory under controlled conditions, as opposed to a field technique. Regarding damage models, there is a large class of concrete performance models based on principles of continuum damage mechanics. These models often use parameters such as crack density to predict changes in stiffness due to damage. Up to now crack density is a difficult thing to measure, but AE has the potential to provide information on crack density that could then be used to tune the continuum damage models related to concrete

References
1. Bhushan L. Karihaloo, Fracture mechanics and structural concrete, Longman Scientific& technical, Longman group limited, Longman house, Essex, CM20 2JE, 1995 England. Abdalla H M and Karihaloo B L, Determination of sizeindependent specific fracture energy of concrete from threepoint bend and wedge splitting tests., Magazine of concrete research, 55(2) (2003) pp.133-141. Duan K, Hu X Z and Wittmann F H, Boundary effect on concrete fracture induced by non-constant fracture energy distribution, in fracture mechanics of concrete structures, Proceedings FRAMCOS-4, 49-55 A.A. Balkema Publishers, Rotterdam, (2001) pp.49-55. Hu X Z and Wittmann F H Size effect on toughness induced by crack close to free surface., Engineering fracture mechanics, 65 (2000) pp. 209-211. Hillerborg A, Modeer M, Peterson P E, Analysis of crack formation and crack growth in concrete by means of fracture mechanics and finite elements, Cement and Concrete Research 6 (1976) pp. 773-782. Landis, Eric N, and Baillon Lucie, Experiments to relate acoustic emission energy to fracture energy of concrete. Journal of Engineering Mechanics ASCE, 128 (2002) pp. 698-702. Miller, Ronnie K, McIntire, Paul, Non-destructive Testing Handbook. Acoustic Emission Testing. American Society for Non-destructive Testing INC (1987). Pollock, Adrian A, Acoustic emission inspection, Technical report, TR-103-96-12/89, Physical Acoustics corporation., 195 Clarksville Road, Princeton Jct., NJ., USA (1989) Ohtsu M, The history and development of acoustic emission in concrete engineering. Magazine of concrete research, 48(147) (1996) pp. 321-330. RILEM Committee 50-FMC. Determination of the fracture energy of mortar and concrete by means of three-point bend tests on notched beams, Materials and structures 1985; Vol.18, No.106, pp. 285-290. Users Manual SAMOS AE System Rev 2, Physical Acoustic Corporation, Princeton. NJ (2005)

2.

3.

4. Fig. 2 : Variation fracture energy (Gf) and acoustic emission energy with depth (Fig.a) and the independent fracture energy GF as a function of beam depth (Fig.b).

5.

Ef(a0/W) versus depth ratio. EF is plotted with respect to depth as shown in Fig.2b. The trend line drawn horizontal is parallel to the depth axis. However, in-spite of all that the size independent acoustic emission energy EF was not absolutely constant with depth. The mean line drawn horizontally, viz., parallel to the depth axis did not pass through all the points. There were deviations however small and the present experimental study may be useful to quantitative measure of size independent specific fracture energy of concrete.

6.

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9.

Conclusions
The present experimental study makes clear some extent about the fundamental differences between the two methods namely fracture energy calculated using RILEM method of Hillerborg [10] and fracture energy calculated using fictitious crack model [5].
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11.