Use of Acoustic Emission Method for Identification of Fatigue Micro-cracks Creation

This paper is a contribution to the discussion on the possibilities of identification of the time behaviour of various stages of fatigue lifetime directly during experiments using non-destructive testing methods (mainly acoustic emission method). We focus especially on detection and characterization of the transition from the stage of cycling damage accumulation to micro-cracks creation. In the past years, the laboratory of fatigue properties of FME received and published plenty of information about propagation of damage mainly in Al and Ti alloys. In this paper are presented and compared the results of new experiments with steel used for nuclear reactors and Inconel alloy. This work is focused on comparison of selected parameters of acoustic emission signal in pre-initiation and initiation stage of fatigue crack creation. Acoustic emission hits with higher stress were detected in the pre-initiation stage whereas the initiation stage hits exhibited low stress.