Does Atmospheric Corrosion Alter the Sound Quality of the Bronze Used for Manufacturing Bells?

Bells are made of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin. Art objects and musical instruments belong to tangible and intangible heritage. The effect of atmospheric alteration on their sound is not well documented. To address this question, alteration cycles of bronze specimens are performed in a chamber reproducing a realistic polluted coastal atmosphere. The corrosion layers are characterized by X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectrometry. The buried interface of the film (alloy-layer interface) is formed by a thin, adherent and micro-cracked layer, mainly composed of sulfates, copper oxide and chloride, on top of tin corrosion products. Near the atmosphere-film interface, less adherent irregular clusters of soot, calcite, gypsum and halite developed. Through these observations, an alteration scenario is proposed. To correlate the bronze corrosion effect on the bell sound, linear and nonlinear resonance experiments are performed on the corroded bronze specimens, where resonance parameters are monitored as a function of increasing driving force using a shaker. Results show that the corrosion effect on the acoustic properties can be monitored through the evolution of the acoustic nonlinear parameters (damping and resonance). These well-calibrated original experiments confirm the effect of corrosion on the acoustic properties of bronze.

Damage Localization on Composite Structures Based on the Delay-and-Sum Algorithm Using Simulation and Experimental Methods.

Damage detection and localization based on ultrasonic guided waves revealed to be promising for structural health monitoring and nondestructive testing. However, the use of a piezoelectric sensor's network to locate and image damaged areas in composite structures requires a number of precautions including the consideration of anisotropy and baseline signals. The lack of information related to these two parameters drastically deteriorates the imaging performance of numerous signal processing methods. To avoid such deterioration, the present contribution proposes different methods to build baseline signals in different types of composites. Baseline signals are first constructed from a numerical simulation model using the previously determined elasticity tensor of the structure. Since the latter tensor is not always easy to obtain especially in the case of anisotropic materials, a second PZT network is used in order to obtain signals related to Lamb waves propagating in different directions. Waveforms are then translated according to a simplified theoretical propagation model of Lamb waves in homogeneous structures. The application of the different methods on transversely isotropic, unidirectional and quasi-transversely isotropic composites allows to have satisfactory images that well represent the damaged areas with the help of the delay-and-sum algorithm.

Acoustic Emission Monitoring of Progressive Damage of Reinforced Concrete T-Beams under Four-Point Bending.

Acoustic Emission (AE) is revealed to be highly adapted to monitor materials and structures in materials research and for site monitoring. AE-features can be either analyzed by means of physical considerations (geophysics/seismology) or through their time/frequency waveform characteristics. However, the multitude of definitions related to the different parameters as well as the processing methods makes it necessary to develop a comparative analysis in the case of a heterogeneous material such as civil engineering concrete. This paper aimed to study the micro-cracking behavior of steel fiber-reinforced reinforced concrete T-beams subjected to mechanical tests. For this purpose, four-points bending tests, carried out at different displacement velocities, were performed in the presence of an acoustic emission sensors network. Besides, a comparison between the sensitivity to damage of three definitions corresponding to the b-value parameter was performed and completed by the evolution of the RA-value and average frequency (AF) as a function of loading time. This work also discussed the use of the support-vector machine (SVM) approach to define different damage zones in the load-displacement curve. This work shows the limits of this approach and proposes the use of an unsupervised learning approach to cluster AE data according to physical and time/frequency parameters. The paper ends with a conclusion on the advantages and limitations of the different methods and parameters used in connection with the micro/macro tensile and shear mechanisms involved in concrete cracking for the purpose of in situ monitoring of concrete structures.

Passive monitoring of nonlinear relaxation of cracked polymer concrete samples using acoustic emission.

This work presents an acoustic emission (AE) monitoring of slow dynamics in micro-cracked polymer concrete (PC) samples. In order to obtain calibrated damage states, AE was first used to characterize the micro-damage mechanisms in real time when PC samples are submitted to three-point bending tests. Then, an unsupervised classification of AE data based on the Principle Component Analysis and the k-means clustering was applied to classify AE data. The AE monitoring of the nonlinear relaxation of PC samples revealed the existence of a silence period followed by AE hits belonging to two different damage classes. A similarity appeared between the properties of the detected AE hits obtained during the nonlinear relaxation and the quasi-static tests. Finally, this work shows that the dynamics of both mechanisms during the nonlinear relaxation are clearly different.

Hysteretic nonlinearity analysis in damaged composite plates using guided waves.

Sensitivity of nonlinear acoustic methods to the presence and the evolution of micro-damage has been proven in various studies on a wide range of materials. In this contribution, a guided wave approach is proposed to characterize polymer based composite plates taken at intact as well as damaged states. The changes in the nonlinear hysteretic parameters are observed by changing the order of the excited flexural resonances. The analysis is based on the evolution of the velocity frequency dispersion of the generated guided waves, where flexural modes are considered separately and together as a function of the dynamic strain.

Monitoring progressive damage in polymer-based composite using nonlinear dynamics and acoustic emission.

In this work quantitative results of applying nonlinear acoustic dynamics to study progressive damage in a polymer-based composite SMC (sheet molding compound) are presented. Via carefully controlled resonant plate experiment, nonlinear slow dynamics (SNLD) response of SMC in terms of relaxation time and frequency shift has been shown to be very sensitive to gradual damage induced using three-point bending tests. Besides, acoustic emission monitoring is used to characterize damage through the elastic energy released by SMC at every damage step. Interesting logarithmlike changes of the SNLD parameters as a function of the acoustic emission cumulated energy are found.