Acoustic emission potential in intelligent manufacturing: a sample problem

The potential of acoustic emission (AE) as a method of intelligent process monitoring is explored. It is shown that a number of tools are available to the user of acoustic emission, making it possible to apply the technique to a variety of problems. By way of example, the authors discuss a laboratory study in which acoustic emission events from a fatigue test are monitored and a large number of selected signals are digitally recorded. The event trends and signals are analyzed in order to discriminate between acoustic events associated with material defects and those produced by other benign sources. By the use of both physical arguments and pattern recognition techniques which are empirical or statistical in nature, these results are related to the failure processes taking place within the specimen