The application of acoustic emission (AE) technique in monitoring the safe condition is a useful technique in steel and concrete structures, whereas its application is restrained in masonry structures due to the layered property. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were investigated in this research to improve the AE application in masonry structures. For quantitative analysis, an improved localization method is proposed to give more reliable crack localization results. In the proposed method, the parameter ξ on the behavior of inhomogeneity of the monitored structure could minimize the unavoidable propagation delay caused by the layers in the masonry structure. The rest results approved the reliability of the proposed method in masonry structures. For qualitative analysis, the parameter analysis, including the cumulative AE event, frequency distribution, time-scaling exponent, and b-value, was adopted to monitor one historical church and was approved to be useful.
Part of the book: Non-Destructive Testing