Acoustic emission (AE) is gaining ground as a non-destructive technique for health diagnosis on rotating machinery. There are vast opportunities for development of the AE technique on various forms of rotating machinery, including gearboxes. This paper reviews some recent developments in application of AE to gear defect diagnosis. Furthermore, an experimental investigation that examines the effectiveness of AE for gear defect identification is presented. It is concluded that application of the AE technique to seeded gear defect detection is fraught with difficulties. In addition, the viability of the AE technique for gear defect detection from non-rotating components of a machine is called into question. q

It is widely recognised that Acoustic Emission (AE) is gaining ground as a Non-Destructive Technique (NDT) for health diagnosis on rotating machinery. The source of AE is attributed to the release of stored elastic energy that manifests itself in the form of elastic waves that propagate in all directions on the surface of a material. These detectable AE waves can provide useful information about the health condition of a machine. This paper reports on part of an ongoing experimental investigation on the application of acoustic emission for gear defect diagnosis. Furthermore, the possibility of monitoring gear defects from the bearing casing is examined. It is concluded that AE offers a complimentary tool for health monitoring of gears.

Acoustic Emission (AE) monitoring was performed during Pseudo-Dynamic Testing of a torsionally unbalanced, two-storey, one-by-one bay reinforced concrete frame structure. The structure represented a 0.7-scale model of a real-size frame structure designed and detailed according to the standards prevailing in Greece in 60's, without engineered earthquake resistance. Real time monitoring of AE activity versus the complex applied load resulted in semi quantitative damage characterization as well as comparative evaluation of the damage evolution of the different size columns. Evolution of the AE energy rate per channel, as revealed from zonal location, and the energy rate of linearly located sources enabled the identification of damage areas and the forecast of crack locations before cracks were visible with naked eye. In addition to that, the results of post processing evaluation allowed for the verification of the witnessed damaged areas and formed the basis for quantitative assessment of damage criticality.