A novel closure based approach for fatigue crack length estimation using the acoustic emission technique in structural health monitoring applications

Use of Acoustic Emission (AE) for detecting and locating fatigue cracks in metallic structures is widely reported but studies investigating its potential for fatigue crack length estimation are scarce. Crack growth information enables prediction of the remaining useful life of a component using well established fracture mechanics principles. Hence, the prospects of AE for use in structural health monitoring applications would be significantly improved if it could be demonstrated not only as a means of detecting crack growth but also for estimation of crack lengths. A new method for deducing crack length has been developed based on correlations between AE signals generated during fatigue crack growth and corresponding cyclic loads. A model for crack length calculation was derived empirically using AE data generated during fatigue crack growth tests in 2 mm thick SEN aluminium 2014 T6 specimens subject to a tensile stress range of 52 MPa and an R ratio of 0.1. The model was validated using AE data generated independently in separate tests performed with a stress range of 27 MPa. The results showed that predictions of crack lengths over a range of 10 mm to 80 mm can be obtained with the mean of the normalised absolute errors ranging between 0.28 and 0.4. Predictions were also made using existing AE feature-based methods and the results compared to those obtained with the novel approach developed.