A coupled local-global structural health monitoring approach for assessing the structural performance of deteriorated concrete components with reinforcement corrosion.

Worldwide, many civil engineering structures reach the end of their designed lifetime. Reassessing their design lifetime or performance for altered load conditions, raises questions on their remaining capacity. This doctoral research aims at developing a local-global structural health monitoring approach for assessing the performance of reinforced concrete components subjected to degradation, in particular corrosion of the reinforcing steel. The damage effect is quantified by coupling local and global monitoring techniques. Local inspection is performed through crack mapping and Acoustic Emission, the latter being a promising technique to detect internal cracks and relate the observed signals to the damage process. Local damage data, however, do not readily allow structural assessment on a larger scale. Globally, vibration-based structural health monitoring is applied, which provides an indication of the loss of stiffness, but does not provide information about the damage process. The innovative aspect of this PhD research is to couple both techniques using a meso-scale finite element model and therefore limiting the shortcomings of the individual techniques. The developed model-based coupling approach increases the efficiency and robustness of the method, which is quantified in a Bayesian framework. An experimental test program is designed to provide a validation of the approach, which is further valorised in a case study.