Early Damage State Detection in Gearbox Components Via Acoustic Emission

To meet the US Navy"s need for an innovative AE technology for extracting the true AE signal out of background noises, X-wave Innovations, Inc. (XII) and The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) propose an innovative wireless AE technology for automated detection of early stages of crack initiation and short crack propagation in rotating gearbox components. The proposed approach builds on the XII-developed wireless AE technology and JHU"s significant work in quantitative materials characterization. This approach allows AE sensors to be installed in a rotating gearbox component and transmits the detected AE signals to a data acquisition device wirelessly. Through AE detection algorithms, true AE signals can be separated from the background noise in real-time. The stages of crack initiation and short crack propagation in the gearbox components can be determined from the true AE signals. In the Phase I program, XII team will build a prototype system and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed technology. For the Phase II program, XII team will develop a working prototype and conduct extensive validation tests to improve the prototype performance. For the Phase III, XII team will finalize the technology and system and conduct technical transitioning or commercialization.