Abstract
Acoustic emission (AE) testing is a widely used nondestructive testing (NDT) method to investigate material failure. When environmental conditions are harmful for the operation of the sensors, waveguides are typically mounted in between the inspected structure and the sensor. Such waveguides can be built from different materials or have different designs in accordance with the experimental needs. All these variations can cause changes in the acoustic emission signals in terms of modal conversion, additional attenuation or shift in frequency content. A finite element method (FEM) was used to model acoustic emission signal propagation in an aluminum plate with an attached waveguide and was validated against experimental data. The geometry of the waveguide is systematically changed by varying the radius and height to investigate the influence on the detected signals. Different waveguide materials were implemented and change of material properties as function of temperature were taken into account. Development of the option of modeling different waveguide options replaces the time consuming and expensive trial and error alternative of experiments. Thus, the aim of this research has important implications for those who use waveguides for AE testing.
Highlights
Waveguides are used in acoustic emission (AE) detection to perform nondestructive testing (NDT)of structures under extreme operation conditions
In this paper it has been shown that finite element modeling can be used to simulate acoustic emission wave propagation generated by pencil-lead breaks in thin plates and rods
Extended numerical investigations have been used to evaluate the influence of the waveguides geometry and material on signal propagation
Summary
Waveguides are used in acoustic emission (AE) detection to perform nondestructive testing (NDT)of structures under extreme operation conditions. Experimental studies were carried out to evaluate how close an AE signal detected by a sensor mounted on a waveguide duplicates the AE signal which was detected without the waveguide [5]. Both signals showed good agreement in terms of their shape and highlighted the fact that the signal amplitudes reduces by 13 dB for a 1.59 mm aluminum waveguide of 306.4 mm length. The development of computational power and the high level of detail provided by FEM modeling, can lead to a simulation of AE signals propagation in waveguides is highly advantageous. Using multiphysics FEM modeling platforms, like Comsol Multiphysics, allows including comprehensive
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