ASSESSMENT OF FATIGUE DAMAGE WITH ACOUSTIC EMISSION.
Abstract
Acoustic emission is well-suited for evaluation and assessment of the extent of fatigue damage in materials and structures. Correlation between acoustic emission parameters such as cumulative counts and counts per cycle with the number of cycles as well as the extent of the stress intensity factor in a flawed structure subjected to fatigue may lead to design curves which give the fatigue damage in a particular component. This study presents an evaluation of the use of acoustic emission to monitor fatigue of structural steels. Fatigue testing include low-cycle fatigue as well as crack propagation studies. Modelling of the sources of acoustic emission and correlations between total counts per cycle and DELTA K are derived. Also, in low-cycle fatigue, an equation relating total counts with the extent of fatigue damage is developed.