A New Method of Low Amplitude Signal Detection and Its Application in Acoustic Emission

Abstract

A novel methodology is proposed to enhance the reliability of detection of low amplitude transients in a noisy time series. Such time series often arise in a wide range of practical situations where different sensors are used for condition monitoring of mechanical systems, integrity assessment of industrial facilities and/or microseismicity studies. In all these cases, the early and reliable detection of possible damage is of paramount importance and is practically limited by detectability of transient signals on the background of random noise. The proposed triggering algorithm is based on a logarithmic derivative of the power spectral density function. It was tested on the synthetic data, which mimics the actual ultrasonic acoustic emission signal recorded continuously with different signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). Considerable advantages of the proposed method over established fixed amplitude threshold and STA/LTA (Short Time Average / Long Time Average) techniques are demonstrated in comparative tests.