Application of acoustic emission to condition monitoring: Proceedings of the 16th European Working Group on Acoustic Emission Conference, London (United Kingdom), 13–18 Sep. 1987, pp. 2951–2960. Edited by C.B. Scruby and R. Hill, Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Non-Destructive Testing, London (United Kingdom), 13–17 Sep. 1987, Vol. 4, Pergamon Press, 1988

Abstract

With the aim of applying AE technology to condition monitoring, the phenomena producing AE in the materials and acoustic background noise present during plant and structure operation are analyzed. The main characteristics and the needs in performance and reliability of the instrumentation which has to work for a long period, continuous monitoring in hostile ambient are outlined. Experience accumulated by CISE in AE testing on real structures is described and the main conclusive results are reported. AE examinations during hydrotests of pressure vessels in pre-service and in-service inspection are considered. Particular attention is paid to problems related to AE continuous monitoring. Experimental activity carried out on reduced scale structures during fatigue tests (pressure vessels, offshore nodes), loading up to failure (steel vessels, fiber glass pipes, concrete beams) and stress corrosion (stainless steel pipes) is discussed. Finally the results obtained in leak monitoring on power plants are reported.