Advanced Location and Characterisation of Damage in Complex Metallic Structures Using Acoustic Emission

Abstract

The current commercial approach to acoustic emission source location, called time-of arrival (TOA), requires knowledge of the sensor position and an accurate measure of wavespeed. Furthermore TOA assumes a straight path of propagation between the source and the sensor, which in complex geometries is rarely the case, whilst ambiguities and errors arise due to the minimising of the number of sensors, premature triggering of timing measurements and dispersion of the wave. In previous work [1], a novel solution for AE source location in geometrically complicated structures has been developed. Delta-t mapping source location utilises an artificial source; differences in times of arrival from a number of locations are recorded, to improve source location. The method does not require knowledge of the sensor position or wavespeed. This work however only reported on the results from an artificial source.