Tensile failure analysis of structural materials using acoustic emission.

Mowat, John J.; Jihan, Sha; Droubi, Mohamad G.

Abstract

Materials' testing is an extremely important process in the modern world with new colossal structures being built in every corner of the earth, with the ever-increasing size of structures making safety of vital importance. This research therefore aims to characterise the failure behaviour of three commonly used structural metals, namely Steel, Aluminium and Brass, when subjected to tensile loading. The tensile load was applied to each of the metallic specimen at four different loading rates whilst using the Acoustic Emission (AE) technique as a monitoring tool to record elastic waves produced from the materials until failure. Fractography was also examined in this study to correlate the AE signals with microscopic deformation characteristics of the materials. The AE activity was superimposed on the loading graph for each material tested. The graph was divided into three distinct regions (elastic, plastic and failure) and the recorded AE was compared. All three materials displayed a unique intensity of acoustic emission. The results showed that for the three materials, steel produced the most amount of AE activity for all loading rates tested. It was also observed that the highest accumulation of AE activity concentrated at the elastic region. The AE signals were found to be amplified when increasing the displacement rate of tensile load applied to specimens. Each material displayed unique characteristics in relation to the AE activity with defining features when monitoring until failure. The AE technique proved effective at distinguishing between the three materials, when applied with a tensile load until failure. Therefore, the proposed AE monitoring technique can be useful to effectively monitor failure characteristics and to assess the overall structural health of such materials to ensure their integrity.

Citation

MOWAT, J., JIHAN, S. and DROUBI, M.G. 2016. Tensile failure analysis of structural materials using acoustic emission. In Proceedings of the 8th European workshop on structural health monitoring (EWSHM 2016), 5-8 July 2016, Bilbao, Spain. Bad Breisig: NDT.net [online], paper 140. Available from: http://www.ndt.net/events/EWSHM2016/app/content/Paper/140_Droubi.pdf

• Conference Name: 8th European workshop on structural health monitoring (EWSHM 2016)
• Conference Location: Bilbao, Spain
• Start Date: Jul 5, 2016
• End Date: Jul 8, 2016
• Acceptance Date: Feb 15, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jul 5, 2016
• Publication Date: Jul 5, 2016
• Deposit Date: Sep 16, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 16, 2016
• Publisher: NDT.net
• ISBN: 9781510827936
• Keywords: Steel; Aluminium; Brass; Tensile loading; Acoustic emission
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/1724
• Publisher URL: http://www.ndt.net/events/EWSHM2016/app/content/Paper/140_Droubi.pdf