The Influence of Sensor Size on Acoustic Emission Waveforms—A Numerical Study

The performance of Acoustic Emission technique is governed by the measuring efficiency of the piezoelectric sensors usually mounted on the structure surface. In the case of damage of bulk materials or plates, the sensors receive the acoustic waveforms of which the frequency and shape are correlated to the damage mode. This numerical study measures the waveforms received by point, medium and large size sensors and evaluates the effect of sensor size on the acoustic emission signals. Simulations are the only way to quantify the effect of sensor size ensuring that the frequency response of the different sensors is uniform. The cases of horizontal (on the same surface), vertical and diagonal excitation are numerically simulated, and the corresponding elastic wave displacement is measured for different sizes of sensors. It is shown that large size sensors significantly affect the wave magnitude and content in both time and frequency domains and especially in the case of surface wave excitation. The coherence between the original and received waveform is quantified and the numerical findings are experimentally supported. It is concluded that sensors with a size larger than half the size of the excitation wavelength start to seriously influence the accuracy of the AE waveform.