Feasibility assessment of non-contact acoustic emission monitoring of corrosion-fatigue damage in submerged steel structures

Corrosion-fatigue is considered to be one of the main degradation mechanisms affecting the structural integrity of offshore support structures. This paper presents a feasibility assessment for the detection and monitoring of corrosion-fatigue damage using non-contact acoustic emission (AE). An accelerated corrosion-fatigue experiment was conducted on a S420NL dog-bone specimen. A corrosion-fatigue cell was designed and fabricated to simultaneously apply accelerated corrosion and cyclic loads on the specimen submerged in artificial seawater. A three-electrode electrochemical configuration under potentiostatic control was used to accelerate corrosion. The ultrasound signals were continuously measured using underwater AE transducers (in the frequency range of 50–450 kHz) placed at a fixed distance from the tested coupon. The results of the accelerated corrosion-fatigue experiment suggest that corrosion-fatigue-induced ultrasound signals can be detected with a satisfactory signal-to-noise ratio using non-contact AE sensors. The mean energy of the corrosion-fatigue-induced ultrasound signals was one order of magnitude higher than that of the corrosion-induced signals. The trends of the AE parameters extracted from the AE signals were analysed as functions of the load cycles. The results revealed high potential for the identification and monitoring of corrosion-fatigue damage using the non-contact AE technique. • Corrosion-fatigue was induced on a dog-bone steel specimen using the proposed setup. • The AE parameters rates and values suggested four stages of damage growth. • AE energy of corrosion-fatigue signals is significantly higher than that of corrosion signals.