Acoustic Emission Sensors

The principles and selections

Acoustic wave (acoustic emission) sensors are the ceramic piezoelectric transducers converting the mechanical elastic acoustic waves generated in the material (e.g. elastic waves occur when a material cracks, wears, deforms, or corrodes) to electrical signals. The electrical signals are then amplified and filtered by a preamplifier and then transmitted to a special acoustic emission acquisition instrument for further data processing and analysis.

Typical Application Selection:

In terms of acoustic emission applications, most actual applications are on the stable metallic structure, for example: pressure vessels. The anisotropy of this type of material is relatively small, as well as the attenuation coefficient of acoustic wave. The frequency band range is between 25kHz ~ 750kHz. It is suitable to choose resonant sensors (narrower band but high sensitivity).

Resonant narrow-band sensors with the centre frequency of 150kHz are widely used for testing acoustic emission signals in engineering materials, which are under the condition of metallic material and other applications.

Resonant narrow-band sensors have high sensitivity and SNR, which are inexpensive, and have various specifications. On the occasion of knowing the basic characteristics of sound source propagation, if customers who want to acquire the acoustic signals in a certain frequency range, or to enhance the systematic sensitivity, it is better to choose appropriate resonant sensors, for example, sound localization.

It should be pointed out that the so-called resonant narrow-band sensor is not only sensitive to a certain frequency signal, but to a certain frequency band. But the signal sensitivity is lower for other frequency bands.

We develop and manufacture various types of acoustic emission sensors for sale, including general purpose type, wide-band type, integral preamplifier type, intrinsically safe type, high temperature type, miniature type, as well as customized acoustic emission sensors tailored to meet the special needs of our customers and a wide range of applications.

Please see categories of acoustic emission sensors for further information.