*Article* **Acoustic Emission Study on the Damage Evolution of a Corroded Reinforced Concrete Column under Axial Loads**

**Ye Chen <sup>1</sup> , Shuang Zhu <sup>1</sup> , Shenghua Ye <sup>1</sup> , Yifeng Ling 2,\*, Dan Wu <sup>3</sup> , Geqiang Zhang <sup>1</sup> , Nianfu Du <sup>1</sup> , Xianyu Jin <sup>3</sup> and Chuanqing Fu <sup>4</sup>**


**Abstract:** In this paper, the damage of a reinforced concrete (RC) column with various levels of reinforcement corrosion under axial loads is characterized using the acoustic emission (AE) technique. Based on the AE rate process theory, a modified damage evolution equation of RC associated with the axial load and different corrosion rates is proposed. The experimental results show that the measured AE signal parameters during the loading process are closely related to the damage evolution of the RC column as well as the reinforcement corrosion level. The proposed modified damage evolution equation enables dynamic analysis for the damage of corrosion on a RC column under axial loading for a further real-time quantitative evaluation of corrosion damage on reinforced concrete.

**Keywords:** acoustic emission; AE rate process theory; corrosion rate; damage evolution; axial load
