A conical piezoelectric transducer with integral sensor as a self-calibrating acoustic emission energy source.
The experimental results of a conical piezoelectric transducer with integral backing sensor as a self-calibrating simulated acoustic emission (SAE) energy source are presented. It has been shown that there is a negative linear relationship between the energy of SAE signal detected by the backing sensor and the relative strength (signal energy) of SAE source in the structure detected by a reference sensor under different transducer-to-structure coupling efficiencies, with AC drives of the same wave packet, frequency and peak amplitude to excite the conical transducer as a SAE source at all the investigated frequencies over the frequency range of interest in AE measurements (nominally from 50 kHz to around 1 MHz). This should enable the relative strength of the SAE source in a structure to be determined using the SAE measurement from the backing sensor for the selected electrical inputs to the conical transducer, and hence to remove the concerns about inconsistent transducer-to-structure coupling affecting the relative strength of the SAE source for calibration.
Yan
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Brunel Centre for Manufacturing Metrology, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK.
Theobald
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Jones
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