Rolls-royce and Associates Limited

Neil Randall

Peter H Cowley

Simon D King

An apparatus for locating a source of acoustic emission in a material comprises four spaced transducers coupled to the material. Each transducer produces an output signal corresponding to a detected acoustic emission activity, and each output signal is amplified, rectified and enveloped before being supplied to a processor. Artificially induced acoustic emission events, of known location, are generated in the material. The processor measures the times taken for each output signal corresponding to artificially induced acoustic emission events, to exceed two predetermined amplitudes from a datum time. A neural network analyzes the measured times to exceed the predetermined amplitudes for the output signals corresponding to the artificially induced acoustic emission events and infers the mathematical relationship between values of time and location of acoustic emission event. The times taken for each output signal, corresponding to acoustic emission events of unknown source location, to exceed two predetermined amplitudes from the datum are measured and are used to calculate the location of the unknown source with the mathematical relationship deduced by the neural network.

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Matlock, United Kingdom

Neil Randall