A New Fracture Detection Algorithm of Low Amplitude Acoustic Emission Signal Based on Kalman Filter-Ripple Voltage

Acoustic Emission Source Characterisation during Fatigue Crack Growth in Al 2024-T3 Specimens

While acoustic emission (AE) testing can be used as a valuable technique in structural health monitoring and non-destructive testing, little research has been conducted to establish its sources, particularly in 2024-T3 aluminium alloys. The major contribution of this work is that it provides a method to obtain a better linear relationship of count rate with crack growth rate based on waveform. This paper aims to characterise AE sources by synchronising the AE waveforms with load levels and then to propose possible dominant frequency ranges. The AE waveforms during fatigue crack growth in edge-notched 2024-T3 aluminium specimens, from an initial crack length of 10 mm to 70 mm, were collected at two different load ratios R = 0.125 and 0.5. At the same time, the crack growth rate was determined using thermal imaging and associated control software. The AE waveforms obtained were processed using the fast Fourier transform. It was shown that a significantly higher AE count rate was recorded at R = 0.125 compared to R = 0.5 when the maximum load was kept the same. This means that the R-ratio would affect the total amount of AE activities collected. It was also found that the dominant frequency range of the AE waveforms directly related to crack growth was 152-487 kHz, and the ranges due to crack closure were likely to be 310 kHz-316 kHz and 500-700 kHz. Based on the proposed frequency ranges, waveform selection was conducted and a better linear relationship between count rate and crack growth rate was observed. This study provides a better understanding of the AE sources and waveforms for future structural health monitoring applications.

Characterization of Damage Progress in the Defective Grouted Sleeve Connection Using Combined Acoustic Emission and Ultrasonics

The grouted sleeve connection is one of the most widely used connections for prefabricated buildings (PBs). Usually, its quality can have a significant impact on the safety of the whole PB, especially for the internal flaws that form during sleeve grouting. It is directly related to the mechanical performance and failure behavior of the grouted sleeve. Therefore, it is essential to understand the damage progression of the defective grouted sleeve connection. However, destructive testing is the mainstream measure to evaluate the grout sleeves, which is not applicable for in situ inspection. Therefore, this paper proposes a combined acoustic emission (AE) and ultrasonic testing (UT) method to characterize the damage progress of a grouted sleeve with different degrees of internal flaws under tensile loading. The UT was conducted before loading to evaluate the internal flaws. Additionally, the AE was used as the processing monitoring technique during the tensile testing. Two damage modes were identified: (i) brittle mode associated with the rebar pullout; (ii) ductile mode associated with the rapture of the rebar. The UT energy ratio was selected as the most sensitive feature to the internal flaws, both numerically and experimentally. The AE signatures of different damage phases and different damage modes were determined and characterized. For the brittle and ductile damage modes, two and three phases appeared in the AE activities, respectively. The proposed combined AE and UT method can provide a reliable and convenient nondestructive evaluation of grouted sleeves with internal flaws. Moreover, it can also characterize the damage progress of the grouted sleeve connections in real-time.