A comparison of optically and piezoelectrically sensed acoustic emission signals

Abstract

The usual sensor for acoustic emission is the piezoelectric transducer. Although this transducer is readily available, reasonably inexpensive, and very sensitive to ultrasonic transients, it has several serious drawbacks as a transducer: It distorts the signals being measured, it exhibits resonances, it has limited bandwidth, it responds differently to surface acoustic waves and bulk waves (because of its large sensitive area), and its calibration is a matter of considerable uncertainty. Essentially, it is a qualitative transducer. Furthermore, it cannot measure local effects within a millimeter of an emission source, where the mechanisms causing the ultrasonic transient are presumably most clearly distinguishable. Optical transducers, on the other hand, have the great advantage of providing accurate, quantitative, highly localized information; they do not disturb the waves being measured and are not limited by frequency response.