Finite Element Analysis of Crack Growth for Structural Health Monitoring of Mooring Chains using Ultrasonic Guided Waves and Acoustic Emission

Mooring chain life can be significantly reduced, leading to unacceptable risk of catastrophic failure, if early damage is not detected. Chain mounted equipment is available to monitor chain tension and bending, but detection of damage caused by stress concentrations, fatigue, corrosion and fretting or combinations of these is not currently possible. The Ultrasonic Guided Waves (UGW) and Acoustic Emission (AE) techniques are capable of detecting cracks in mooring chains and fatigue damage. This paper describes a methodology of Finite Element Analysis (FEA) for crack initiation and crack growth simulation for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applying UGW and AE.