Corrosion in spiral steel prestressed wires tensioned around core are one of the major weaknesses of prestressed concrete pipes which their untimely detection can cause sudden failure and damages. To date, these kinds of pipes are used and produced in Iran and their abrupt failure due to corrosion has been experienced. In this study acoustic emission monitoring in prestressed concrete was used to investigate the corrosion. An approximately full-scale experimental sample pipe is made in Middle East Technical University laboratory. The pipe is loaded by internal water pressure and accelerated corrosion applied to the sample and the resulted acoustic emission signals are recorded using piezoelectric sensors during corrosion. The sample is tested under wetting and drying cycles frequently for corrosion detection in which during the experiment, pipe inside pressure was fluctuated and Kaiser Effect was studied in different conditions. Experimental results show significant changes in some gained acoustic emission parameters as the pipe work pressure increases to higher amounts. It is shown that the changed AE parameters can be used for damage prediction, condition assessment and corrosion detection of prestressed concrete pipelines.

Keywords: Acoustic emission, Prestressed Pipe, Health Monitoring, Accelerated Corrosion, Damage detection

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