Research on AE Source Location and Identification Method of Tank Bottom Corrosion

Abstract

As large storage tank has large diameter, the acoustic emission (AE) wave attenuation will increase. The number of location events may be lost. The activity of the defect cannot be understood. Reliability of safety assessment of tank bottom corrosion will be affected. In order to solve the problem, an acoustic source identification method is presented. Based on the AE source location theory of tank bottom, it is put forward that the sensors located on the tank bottom medium are employed together with the sensors arranged on tank outside wall near tank bottom to identify the acoustic source of tank bottom corrosion defects. Experiments of acoustic source location and identification for simulative tank bottom corrosion have been conducted. The results show that the method can help for recognizing acoustic source in arbitrary triangle and area location of tank bottom area; in addition, the sensor inside the tank is more sensitive to the identification of corrosion acoustic source than the external sensor. Therefore, the method can improve the reliability of results for the identification and location of tank bottom acoustic source.