In-situ estimation of defect volume from parameters of acoustic emission signals
Abstract By using two methods of nondestructive testing, i.e., acoustic emission (AE) measurements and X-ray computed microtomography (CT), an experimental study of defect accumulation during a uniaxial compression of a natural heterogeneous material was carried out. A joint analysis of the AE and CT data revealed a correspondence between energy characteristics of the acoustic emission accompanying defect formation and volume of defects. It is shown that the dependence of the total energy of AE signals on the defect volume is linear, which is consistent with the phenomenological dependences for earthquake focuses obtained earlier. The linear dependence was used to estimate the average defect size. It is shown that, regardless of the assumed defect shape, its average linear size does not exceed 100 μm.