Monitoring of fracture propagation in brittle materials using acoustic emission techniques-A review

During the past decades, the application of acoustic emission techniques (AET) through the diagnosis and monitoring of the fracture process in materials has been attracting considerable attention. AET proved to be operative among the other non-destructive testing methods for various reasons including their practicality and cost-effectiveness. Concrete and rock structures often demand thorough and real-time assessment to predict and prevent their damage nucleation and evolution. This paper presents an overview of the work carried out on the use of AE as a monitoring technique to form a comprehensive insight into its potential application in brittle materials. Reported properties in this study are crack growth behavior, localization, damage evolution, dynamic character and structures monitoring. This literature review provides practicing engineers and researchers with the main AE procedures to follow when examining the possibility of failure in civil/resource structures that rely on brittle materials.