| There is presently no inexpensive method of monitoring the structural “health” of a building during and after an earthquake. Typically, building inspectors take significant time to determine if the building is safe for continued use after a seismic event—a time when the building and its content might be most needed (e.g., police station or hospital). Acoustic monitoring, as used in aerospace applications, can “listen” for high-frequency micro-crack formation in load beams and stress walls during a seismic event to indicate, without human inspection, the structural soundness of the building. This thesis first evaluates state-of-the-art acoustic sensing systems and notes the sensors themselves to be quite inexpensive, while the processing electronics required for monitoring a single beam to be prohibitive. Next, the thesis develops a means of duplicating the analytic results of the commercial acoustic system without the expensive processing, but with off the shelf laboratory equipment. Finally, the thesis demonstrates a complete acoustic emission sensor system using Digital Signal Processing and programmable electronics of such low cost as to have practical application in building health monitoring. |
