Showing papers on "Acoustic emission published in 2020"

Damage characterization of laminated composites using acoustic emission: A review

Abstract: Damage characterization of laminated composites has been thoroughly studied the last decades where researchers developed several damage models, and in combination with experimental evidence, contributed to better understanding of the structural behavior of these structures. Experimental techniques played an essential role on this progress and among the techniques that were utilized, acoustic emission (AE) was extensively used due to its advantages for in-situ damage monitoring with high sensitivity and its capability to inspect continuously a relatively large area. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the use of AE for damage characterization in laminated composites. The review is divided into two sections; the first section discusses the literature for damage diagnostics and it is presented in three subsections: damage initiation detection, damage type identification and damage localization, while the second section is devoted to damage prognostics and it focuses on the remaining useful life (RUL) and residual strength prediction of composite structures using AE data. In every section, efforts have been made to analyze the most relevant literature, discuss in a critical manner the results and conclusions, and identify possibilities for future work.

A Review of Acoustic Impedance Matching Techniques for Piezoelectric Sensors and Transducers.

Abstract: The coupling of waves between the piezoelectric generators, detectors, and propagating media is challenging due to mismatch in the acoustic properties. The mismatch leads to the reverberation of waves within the transducer, heating, low signal-to-noise ratio, and signal distortion. Acoustic impedance matching increases the coupling largely. This article presents standard methods to match the acoustic impedance of the piezoelectric sensors, actuators, and transducers with the surrounding wave propagation media. Acoustic matching methods utilizing active and passive materials have been discussed. Special materials such as nanocomposites, metamaterials, and metasurfaces as emerging materials have been presented. Emphasis is placed throughout the article to differentiate the difference between electric and acoustic impedance matching and the relation between the two. Comparison of various techniques is made with the discussion on capabilities, advantages, and disadvantages. Acoustic impedance matching for specific and uncommon applications has also been covered.

Mechanical and Acoustic Emission Characteristics of Coal at Temperature Impact

Abstract: Coal and rock mass constitute a type of porous medium. This study investigated the influence of temperature impact on the mechanical properties and acoustic emission (AE) characteristics of coal. A mechanism analysis was performed from the perspective of microstructure. The results show that the temperature impact causes the development of pores and cracks in the coal, which reduces the strength of coal. The elastic modulus of coal generally decreases with increasing temperature gradient. AE parameters increase with the increase in the load and reach the maximum value at the peak stress. AE parameters and cumulative parameters decrease with increasing temperature gradient. Not only does temperature impact change the fracture structure of the coal surface, but also the internal fracture structure of the coal is significantly affected. After temperature impact, the cracks expand and new cracks are initiated, and the fracture volume of the coal increases. Temperature impact causes the volume and specific surface area of small pores and meso-pores in coal to increase, and promotes the opening of the necking pores within the coal. The impact causes macro-pores to penetrate through to form cracks, which increases the transport of coal gas and significantly improves the permeability of coal. The thermal stress generated by coal under temperature impact is greater than its tensile strength, which promotes the cracking of coal, along with the initiation, widening, extension, and expansion of crack networks, which significantly change the fracture structure of coal. The research results lay a certain theoretical and experimental foundation for further study of mechanical properties of coal affected by liquid nitrogen.

Moment Tensor Analysis of Acoustic Emissions for Cracking Mechanisms During Schist Strain Burst

Abstract: Acoustic emission (AE) location technique and moment tensor analysis were used to evaluate the temporal–spatial evolution and damage of micro-cracks of schist during true triaxial compression and strain burst tests. The results show that the AE locations coincide with the macroscopic cracks for true triaxial compression while they are scattered during unloading strain burst tests. A shearing concentration occurs at the bottom of ejection position, but a tensile zone is located in the fracture plane of the ejection block. The ratios of shear and mixed-mode micro-cracks to total micro-cracks for true triaxial compression are both larger than those for strain burst. However, the strain burst has more tensile micro-cracks. Additionally, the damage caused by tensile micro-cracks for a strain burst is larger than that for a true triaxial compression. Moreover, for strain burst, the difference of damage between shear and tensile micro-cracks is in direct proportion to the loading rates after unloading.

Acoustic Emission Characteristics and Damage Evolution of Coal at Different Depths Under Triaxial Compression

Abstract: To obtain a comprehensive understanding of the difference between deep and shallow rocks, and the damage evolution laws of a rock mass at different depths, a case study was conducted on the Pingdingshan Coal Mine. Mechanical behavior and real-time acoustic emission (AE) testing were carried out to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution of the damage in coal at different depths under triaxial compression conditions. Coal samples from different depths (300, 600, 700, 850, and 1050 m) of the same coal seam were collected, and the geostresses measured at each depth were considered in the two-factor simulation method. The AE characteristics and the spatiotemporal evolution of the coal damage at different depths were also obtained. The testing results show that under the influence of the confining pressure caused by increased geostress, the AE activity and the average scale of the cracks in the coal decreased with increasing depth. The deeper coal developed more small cracks and more plastic strain. With increasing depth, the fractal dimension reduction mode of the spatial distribution of AE under continuous loading changed from dropping suddenly from a higher dimension level (2.97) at a higher stress level (70%) to dropping slowly from a lower dimension level (2.63) at a lower stress level (20%). The generation of AE events was more uniform in the time dimension, while the spatial distribution became more uneven and clustered. With continuous loading, the number of AE events and damage in the shallow coal increased, and the dimension of the spatial distribution of AE decreased sharply during the failure stage before the peak stress was reached. With increasing depth, the damage initiation of coal shifted to an earlier time, while the damage evolution process was more stable and orderly, and ended with a higher damage degree. The sudden damage increase of deep coal was not obvious when approaching to failure. The shallow coal was more brittle and prone to sudden failure with the centralized release of AE energy after reaching the peak stress. However, the deeper coal exhibited a more plastic behavior and the plastic deformation became more obvious during the loading process with the gradual development of damage. These research results deepen the understanding of rock mechanics at different depths, promote the study of the difference in the damage laws of deep and shallow rock masses, and provide a meaningful reference for microseismic monitoring and disaster prevention in deep rock engineering.

Fault Diagnosis of Industrial Wind Turbine Blade Bearing Using Acoustic Emission Analysis

Abstract: Wind turbine blade bearings are often operated in harsh circumstances, which may easily be damaged causing the turbine to lose control and to further result in the reduction of energy production. However, for condition monitoring and fault diagnosis (CMFD) of wind turbine blade bearings, one of the main difficulties is that the rotation speeds of blade bearings are very slow (less than 5 r/min). Over the past few years, acoustic emission (AE) analysis has been used to carry out bearing CMFD. This article presents the results that reflect the potential of the AE analysis for diagnosing a slow-speed wind turbine blade bearing. To undertake this experiment, a 15-year-old naturally damaged industrial and slow-speed blade bearing is used for this study. However, due to very slow rotation speed conditions, the fault signals are very weak and masked by heavy noise disturbances. To denoise the raw AE signals, we propose a novel cepstrum editing method, discrete/random separation-based cepstrum editing liftering (DRS-CEL), to extract weak fault features from raw AE signals, where DRS is used to edit the cepstrum. Thereafter, the morphological envelope analysis is employed to further filter the residual noise leaked from DRS-CEL and demodulate the denoised signal, so the specific bearing fault type can be inferred in the frequency domain. The diagnostic framework combining DRS-CEL and morphological analysis is validated by comparing several methods and related studies, which offers a promising solution for wind-farm applications.

Seismic and Aseismic Preparatory Processes Before Large Stick–Slip Failure

Abstract: Natural earthquakes often have very few observable foreshocks which significantly complicates tracking potential preparatory processes. To better characterize expected preparatory processes before failures, we study stick-slip events in a series of triaxial compression tests on faulted Westerly granite samples. We focus on the influence of fault roughness on the duration and magnitude of recordable precursors before large stick–slip failure. Rupture preparation in the experiments is detectable over long time scales and involves acoustic emission (AE) and aseismic deformation events. Preparatory fault slip is found to be accelerating during the entire pre-failure loading period, and is accompanied by increasing AE rates punctuated by distinct activity spikes associated with large slip events. Damage evolution across the fault zones and surrounding wall rocks is manifested by precursory decrease of seismic b-values and spatial correlation dimensions. Peaks in spatial event correlation suggest that large slip initiation occurs by failure of multiple asperities. Shear strain estimated from AE data represents only a small fraction (< 1%) of total shear strain accumulated during the preparation phase, implying that most precursory deformation is aseismic. The relative contribution of aseismic deformation is amplified by larger fault roughness. Similarly, seismic coupling is larger for smooth saw-cut faults compared to rough faults. The laboratory observations point towards a long-lasting and continuous preparation process leading to failure and large seismic events. The strain partitioning between aseismic and observable seismic signatures depends on fault structure and instrument resolution.

An Experimental Study of Effect of High Temperature on the Permeability Evolution and Failure Response of Granite Under Triaxial Compression

Abstract: Granite is a viable host for deep nuclear waste disposal because its low permeability and high strength enable the stable and safe operation of the repository. We examined the evolution of the permeability and triaxial mechanical behaviour of granite after high-temperature treatment. First, the effect of the high temperature on the physical behaviour and permeability evolution of granite was analysed in detail. The mass, P-wave velocity, and thermal conductivity of granite decrease, but the volume increases with increasing temperature. The permeability of intact granite increases by four orders of magnitude as the cycled temperature increases from 25 to 800 °C. Subsequently, the effect of high temperature on the triaxial deformation and acoustic emission (AE) behaviour of granite was investigated. Under uniaxial compression at T ≤ 300 °C, the stress decreases before the peak strength is reached, corresponding to a significant AE event, which is due to the development of multiple splitting tensile fractures along the loading direction. At T ≥ 450 °C, AE event is observed once a minor stress is applied, which results from failure is controlled by thermally induced cracks. However, under triaxial compression, the temperature has little effect on the AE characteristics. The granite fails along the shear fracture plane, which becomes wider with increasing confining pressure. At T ≥ 600 °C, it is easier to form intragranular cracks and the stress quickly decreases after the peak strength is reached. The shear plane is smoother under high confining pressure. Third, the effect of high temperature on the peak strength and crack damage threshold of granite was further analysed. Generally, under uniaxial compression, the peak strength and crack damage threshold first remain relatively constant at T ≤ 300 °C, begin to decrease at T = 450 °C, and decrease more rapidly at T = 600 °C. The confining pressure notably reduces the effect of the temperature on the peak strength and crack damage threshold. Finally, the effect and mechanism of high temperature on the triaxial strength parameters of granite were further discussed. At T ≤ 300 °C, thermally induced cracks are not notable and the temperature has little effect on the strength. At 450 °C≤ T ≤ 600 °C, thermally induced cracks are more notable and the temperature has a significant effect on the strength behaviour. Because of the thermal stress released by thermal macrocrack formation, the continuous increase in the temperature has little impact on strength.

An Improved Method for Pipeline Leakage Localization With a Single Sensor Based on Modal Acoustic Emission and Empirical Mode Decomposition With Hilbert Transform

Abstract: Due to its great convenience for inspection of pipelines under special conditions, leakage localization with a single acoustic emission (AE) sensor has attracted increasing attention. However, the reported study achieves a good accuracy of leakage localization only for short source-to-sensor distance. In this work, an improved method for pipeline leakage localization with a single sensor is proposed based on modal acoustic emission and empirical mode decomposition with Hilbert transform (EMD-HT). The pipeline is considered as a cylindrical shell to compute the velocity dispersion curves of different guided wave modes. A criterion to select the specific wave modes for leakage localization is presented with the consideration of frequency matching, dispersive properties, and the modes’ confusing possibilities. Integrating the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) with wavelet transform (WT), the framework of the proposed method is developed. A number of field experiments were performed on a steel pipe with a continuous leakage source. The results show that using the proposed method, a maximum relative leakage localization error of 7.32% for the source-to-sensor distances from 0 to 33 meters (m) can be achieved, which is much improved than those of the reported method. With the capacity of precisely locating the leakage source within the range of 33m for each side of the sensor, the proposed method provides a promising way to make the AE technique more suitable for in-situ inspection of pipelines.