AE beamforming method for damage inspection of aircraft structures

A near-field acoustic emission (AE) beamforming method is introduced to localize the AE source arisen from damage of aircraft structures. A series of pencil lead break tests at various regions of a thin steel plate are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the AE beamforming method. The results show that the proposed beamforming method is able to efficiently localize AE sources. It is demonstrated that AE beamforming method is a useful tool to detect the position of damage of aircraft plate structures.