The Largest Open Access Portal of Nondestructive Testing (NDT)

Next to recurring inspections with acoustic emission, like integrity tests or corrosion screening, more and more requests come up for permanent monitoring of valuable and sensible plants or parts. Monitoring should enhance the functionality of plants, moving parts, machines and structures. The goal of monitoring is to detect and identify potential damages early and to increase so the potential to initiate suitable countermeasures or to trigger other NDT methods for detailed inspection. Acoustic emission supports monitoring activities with suitable measurement systems to detect and locate damages. Based on advances data analysis and the expertise of the plant experts, changes in the plant condition or damage indications can be detected. Therefor the AE measurement system has to monitor the condition of the plant continuously to detect changes of the condition and raise alarms in case of significant changes. Reliable measurement instrumentation (hard- and software), self-monitoring sensor network and programmable 24/7 data processing and analysis software is mandatory for such applications. Another major point to be solved is the availability of IT infrastructure like interfaces for cloud access and remote access to the AE system. Some application examples will be shown how permanent monitoring is supported by acoustic emission measurement systems. One example explains permanent monitoring of ball bearings in a 500kW motor and another example shows monitoring of crane components. Our contribution summarizes the requirements for hard- and software, remote access and data processing from the point of view of the AE system.