On-line Monitoring of Engineering Components Using Acoustic Emission Technique

Acoustic emission technique (AET) has been used for on-line monitoring of pressure vessels with artificial defects in the laboratory and for monitoring structural integrity of storage vessels in heavy water plant. The laboratory studies are helpful for getting better insight into the deformation and fracture aspects in the vessels, towards better utilisation of AET for structural integrity of components. AE results generated during hydrotesting of the storage vessels were used to confirm the structural integrity of the vessels. AE was used to monitor compression loading of plain and fly ash concrete. This showed three stages due to crack closure/microcracking, steady crack propagation and unstable crack propagation. An attempt was made to compare the types of cracking in concrete using AE parameters.