Precise AE source location technology for the aerospace industry

Maochen Ge; Gangbing Song

doi:10.1117/12.339904

28 January 1999 Precise AE source location technology for the aerospace industry

Maochen Ge, Gangbing Song

Proceedings Volume 3586, Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Aircraft, Airports, and Aerospace Hardware III; (1999) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.339904
Event: Nondestructive Evaluation Techniques for Aging Infrastructures and Manufacturing, 1999, Newport Beach, CA, United States

Abstract

The application of the acoustic emission (AE) technique has been severely limited during the past several decades due to the difficulties of source location on general shell structures. Two major obstacles are the lack of search algorithms on shell structures, where wave paths are guided by structure shapes, and the lack of the ability to process AE data for meaningful source location. This paper discusses a systematical approach for precise source location on shell structures. The approach not only provides the satisfactory answers to these two problems but also addresses the issue how a precise source location techniques can be used on a daily and routine basis. The approach has been applied to two important studies: analysis of AE data from a rocket motor case and AE monitoring of a railroad tank car. The success in both applications is remarkable. In the case of the railroad tank car where 12 sensors were used, the typical error margin is only 50-150 mm with the best accuracy of 10 mm for a set of data. In viewing of the consistently of the high performance of this approach as demonstrated in both cases as well as the fact that these studies were carried out under the normal industrial monitoring conditions, including structure size, sensor array arrangement and data gathering procedure, we believe that the approach is reliable, technically and economically feasible and ready for general industrial applications.

Citation Download Citation

Maochen Ge and Gangbing Song "Precise AE source location technology for the aerospace industry", Proc. SPIE 3586, Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Aircraft, Airports, and Aerospace Hardware III, (28 January 1999); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.339904

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