Evaluation of acoustic emission activities in a steel fiber reinforced concrete beam by Ib value analysis

There are numerous nondestructive testing methods that are used to determine damages within structures. Acoustic Emission (AE), being one of these methods makes it possible to obtain significant pieces of information such as origin time, location and type of damage formed in a material during loading by analyzing AE data using various algorithms. Ib value analysis is one of these algorithms which is based on AE signal and this analysis enables to have information on formation of new cracks or propagation of existing cracks by scaling the magnitude of AE activities. In this study, in order to investigate effect of the steel fiber in concrete matrix on Ib value, two reinforced concrete beams were tested under simple bending while one of them was the reference. Afterwards, AE parameters obtained were analyzed, Ib value analyses were applied to amplitude values and these parameters were associated to each other. Furthermore, effect of steel fiber existence on behavior of the beam and distribution of AD value were examined.