Monitoring and predicting masonry's creep failure with the acoustic emission technique

The applicability of the acoustic emission (AE) technique to detect unstable damage accumulation in masonry, subjected to the creep failure mode, is investigated during short- and long-term creep tests on masonry specimens. The damage accumulation is quantified using the results of the monitored AE event rates, which evolve as a bathtub-shaped curve during the last phase of the creep tests. The bathtub curves are described using the Weibull function and a relation is found between the detected AE event rate and the time to failure of the specimens.