Acoustic emission: The first half century

摘要

The technology of acoustic emission (AE) is approaching the half century mark, having had its beginning in 1950 with the work of Joseph Kaiser. During the 1950s and 1960s researchers delved into the fundamentals of acoustic emission, developed instrumentation specifically for AE, and characterized the AE behavior of many materials. AE was starting to be recognized for its unique capabilities as an NDT method for monitoring dynamic processes. In the decade of the 1970s research activities became more coordinated and directed with the formation of the working groups, and its use as an NDT method continued to increase for industrial applications. In the 1980s the computer became a basic component for both instrumentation and data analysis, and today it has sparked a resurgence of opportunities for research and development. Today we are seeing a transition to waveform-based AE analysis and a shift in AE activities with more emphasis on applications than on research. From the beginning, we have been fortunate to have had so many dedicated savants with different fields of expertise contribute in a collective way to bring AE to a mature, fully developed technology and leave a legacy of knowledge recorded in its literature. AE literature has been a key indicator of the amount of activity, the proportion of research to application, the emphasis on what was of current interest, and the direction AE has taken. The following is a brief survey of the history of acoustic emission with emphasis on development of the infrastructure over the past half century.