Enabling Maritime Superiority: Continuous Modal Acoustic Emission Monitoring of Unmanned Surface Vessel and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles Structures.

摘要

This paper discusses the possibilities of integrating Modal Acoustic Emission (MAE) technology into Unmanned Surface Vessels (USV) and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV) of the present and future. It provides insights into how MAE technology can deliver real-time USV and UUV structural health information. Understanding vessel survivability during extended and continuing battle operations and extreme sea states is critical. MAE technology can be employed to better develop, build, and maintain unmanned vessels and vehicles that will likely be deployed in our Navy's forward most surface and sub-surface positions. The new generation of USVs and UUV's will be cheaper to build and operate than manned vessels, however their autonomous operation presents a host of new challenges associated with understanding battle damage and mission survivability. MAE technology application presents an opportunity to overcome unique structural evaluation challenges these new classes of vessels will present. How we manage and deploy these new platforms is yet to be fully understood, however MAE technology is poised to play a pivotal role in keeping decision-makers informed as to a vessel's real-time structural integrity and thus it's capabilities to conduct and complete missions. MAE technology can be built into first in class vessels to identify and enable correction of structural faults before they are repeated in subsequent full rate production. Distributing numerous unmanned vessels in the battlespace dictates agile design and development cycles where faults in unique structures can be corrected early. Early elimination of "Class" structural deficiencies will be crucial to delivering large numbers of USVs and UUVs to the battlespace. Through frequency specific information and machine learning implementation, MAE technology has been shown capable of reducing voluminous amounts of data into actionable data that guides asset managers in decision making. Through the ability to identify the damage source mechanism and quantify the energy release associated with the damage, MAE has become an invaluable in-service monitoring tool. There is very little technical guidance in NAVSEA publications or Military Standards on acoustic emission (AE) non-destructive testing (NDT) procedures. Despite this, MAE NDT technology has been effectively employed by the Navy to provide data critical to evaluating the condition of shipboard high pressure air and gas flasks and composite wrapped cylinders. MAE is useful for early fault detection, may be installed for continuous monitoring, and holds significant potential for evaluating USV and UUV structural integrity across the range of metallic and composite materials that will be utilized in these vessels.