Patent ID: 7080555

Claim:
A method for the continued real time health monitoring of a structure using acoustic emission analysis comprising the steps of: a. fixedly mounting at least one acoustic emission transducer in a region of said structure to be monitored; b. distributing, in that same said region, a distributed health monitoring system containing all necessary hardware and software for complete analysis of the raw acoustic emission signals from said at least one transducer; c. amplifying the voltage signals received from said at least one acoustic emission transducer to produce an amplified signal; d. filtering said amplified signal to eliminate unwanted frequencies to produce a filtered signal; e. acquiring, during a pre-determined time period, said filtered signal to identify and record acoustic emission events; f. diagnosing, from said recorded acoustic emission events for said pre-determined time period, the overall health assessment of said region of said structure; wherein said diagnosing step further comprises the steps of; i. calculating in a first calculation, the number of acoustic emission events above a threshold decibel level; ii. calculating, in a second calculation, a historical index for said acoustic emission events; iii. calculating, in a third calculation, a cumulative energy for said acoustic emission events; iv. calculating, in a fourth calculation, a severity of said acoustic emission events; v. calculating, in a fifth calculation, a measure of relative damage by comparing said historical index and said severity to pre-determined and pre-recorded experimental acoustic emission research data; and vi. calculating, as a numerical rating, an overall health assessment of said region of said structure for said pre-determined time period, using the results of said first, second, third, and fifth calculations.