Acoustic Emission Source Location and Experimental Verification for Two-Dimensional Irregular Complex Structure

The location of the acoustic emission (AE) source can monitor the development of the crack in real time in the complex structure. In recent years, numerous location algorithms have been proposed, but the following three problems still affect the accuracy and application of source location. First, the elastic wave velocity is assumed as a fixed value. Second, the geometric irregularities of the structure are not considered. Third, these methods based on data map require a considerable amount of time for repeated training to cover the location area. To solve above issues, we proposed an A* Localization Method without premeasured velocity (ALM), which not only avoids manual repetitive training by searching for paths between equidistant grid nodes and sensors, but also takes advantage of the localization method without requiring pre-measured velocity. Furthermore, the improved A* search algorithm is used to search the fastest wave path in the complex structures with irregular spaces. The ALM is verified by the virtual localization tests and the lead-breaking tests. Results show that the location accuracy was improved significantly by the ALM. It is concluded that the ALM can be available to AE source location for the two-dimensional complex structure with geometric irregularities.