Acoustic emission monitoring of corrosion-fatigue damage evolution in submerged steel structures: a global parametric analysis

Floating offshore production units are typically anchored to the seabed with mooring chains. Structural degradation of mooring chain steel can lead to premature failure with large environmental and financial consequences. In the oceanic environment, corrosion and fatigue are the dominant failure modes for mooring chains. These damage mechanisms...

Damage assessment of highly-loaded low-speed roller bearings with acoustic emission monitoring: A full-scale laboratory evaluation

Highly-loaded low-speed roller bearings are frequently used in equipment offshore e.g. slew bearings in crane, sheave bearings and FPSO turret bearings. Reducing maintenance costs, increasing productivity, ensuring safety of people and structural integrity and longevity assurance of equipment can be achieved by the condition monitoring of highly...

Feasibility evaluation for non-contact ultrasonic inspection of mooring chains through marine growth

Mooring chains are subject to dynamic loads and corrosion. A challenging aspect in assessing the integrity of mooring chains is the presence of marine growth. Marine growth removal is expensive, environmentally damaging, and includes the risk of restarting corrosion process. The focus of this research is on the feasibility of mooring chains...

Experimental and Analytical Determination of Interfiber Fracture Mechanisms and Patterns in Type IV Composite Pressure Vessels

The current needs of sustainable mobility lead to the electrification of transport industries, which require innovative products. The use of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) on a commercial basis depends on the development of hydrogen storage devices, which must be reliable and cost-effective. For the design of high safety composite pressure...

Feasibility of Acoustic Emission Methods for Fatigue Monitoring in Tubular Double Side Welded T-joints

In the field of fatigue testing in laboratory conditions, the common practice is uniaxial testing (i.e. in tension). The real-life loads on structures are usually not limited to one direction but contain multiaxial components. For this kind of testing, the ship and offshore structures department of Delft University of Technology developed a...

Investigating the Behaviour of Acoustic Emission Waves Near Cracks: Using the Finite Element Method

During fatigue crack growth of metallic structures, acoustic stress waves are introduced into the material. These acoustic emission waves are the result of the sudden stress release during the nucleation of the crack surface. Using dedicated acoustic emission monitoring equipment, these waves can be recorded. When multiple sensors are able to...

On the Development of a Volumetric Acoustic Emission Fatigue Crack Monitoring System

Research into multi-axial fatigue requires knowledge on the through time and thickness development of the propagating crack front. In order to provide this knowledge methods must be developed to monitor crack initiation and growth during a fatigue test. The acoustic emission method has been recognised as a possible means to this end. <br/...

Evaluation of Acoustic Emission Monitoring of Existing Concrete Structures

An increasing number of existing structures are approaching the end of their technical service life. Therefore, monitoring these structures to get the information of their health condition, which is called structural health monitoring (SHM), is becoming more significant. In SHM, acoustic emission (AE) technique shows promising features in...

Acoustic Emission Monitoring: of Offshore Wind Turbine Support Structures for Detection and Localization of Fatigue Crack Growth

Offshore wind turbines are used more and more for the production of our electricity. The wind turbines are located in a remote and harsh environment, and are subject to heavy cyclic loading, which may cause fatigue in the support structures. Periodic inspections are required to assess the structural health of the wind turbines. Acoustic Emission...

Temperature effects on an Acoustic Emission based Structural Health Monitoring System: Applied to Composite Materials

Acoustic Emission (AE) based structural health monitoring systems have the potential to assess the state of metallic / composite structures and detect damage in real time as it grows. This is done by monitoring the Lamb waves that occur due to the release of energy and the specific boundary conditions. Environmental and Operational Conditions ...

Temperature and Load effects in Modelling and Experimental Verification of Acoustic Emission Signals for Structural Health Monitoring Applications

The present study focuses on understanding the effect of load and temperature on Acoustic Emission (AE) signal propagation in an Aluminium 2024-T3 panel. In addition, the ability of an AE system to locate damage under these operational and environmental conditions was evaluated. The work was performed in two stages. In stage one, the wave group...