Novel method of utilizing acoustic emission parameters for damage characterization in innovative materials

Acoustic emission technique is used to characterize the damage modes in AlSi10Mg specimens prepared using Selective Laser Melting technique. Three specimens built in different orientations with respect to the building platform were tested. The parameter-based acoustic parameter, peak amplitude was clustered to identify the different damage zones. Davies-Bouldin Index (DBI) is used to optimize the number of clusters and k-means++ algorithm was used to cluster the peak amplitude data. The linear relation between two other acoustic parameters, cumulative counts and cumulative energy, is used to exploit the damage mode under the loading condition. The slope of the linear relation, bAE is estimated for this study. Finally, the signal-based acoustic parameter, wavelets are transformed using Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) and Wavelet Packet Transform (WPT) in an attempt to identify the frequency bands associated with the damage modes. With the aid of proper in-situ characterization tool to support the Acoustic Emission Technique, it can be a powerful tool in damage monitoring and characterization in metal specimens.