Non destructive monitoring of civil engineering structures by using time frequency representation

The paper deals with the non destructive monitoring of civil engineering structures by using the time frequency representation. In particular the Acoustic Emission (AE) of the cracks that can occur inside structures can be evaluated for the study of damage growth. This analysis requires high sampling frequency and long time of observation. Therefore the proposed solution consists of two phases. The first one concerns the acquisition of the AE, the second one deals with the analysis of the acquired data by the Time Frequency Representations. The latter phase allows the identification of the frequencies connected to disaster events like the structural subsidence. The test validation in order to asses the effectiveness of the acquiring system set up is performed according with the standard for the AE in the concrete structures.