Power Over Ethernet Daisy Chained Acoustic Emission System for Structure Health Monitoring

Abstract

It is not uncommon that structure health monitoring is carried out on big infrastructures, e.g., bridges, building, tunnels and pipelines, etc. Traditional acoustic emission systems built up on either standard computer bus or proprietary instrument bus are usually in parallel structure, i.e., all channels are connected to an AE system in parallel cable, and it requires very long cables and needs to provide power in convenient locations for structure health monitoring. However, powering and cabling are common issues that affect cost and efficiency of structure health monitoring of big structures. This paper introduces a new generation of acoustic emission (AE) system based on the Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology. It is a daisy chained AE system that connects all AE channels in a chain. The PoE chain does not only provide signal path but also provide power for preamplifiers and sensors. Channel synchronization is also carried out by the PoE cable. Considerable amount of cables and onsite cable layout time are reduced so that it increases project efficiency and reduces cost and maintenance work of structure health monitoring.