Corrosion-source location by an FPGA-PC based acoustic emission system

This paper presents a novel low-cost acoustic emission (AE) source-location system to locate corrosion sources in AISI304 austenitic stainless steel. The system is implemented using an FPGA-PC configuration. Three AE sensors with 150 kHz resonance frequency were used to detect the AE activities generated from the corrosion. Experiments were set up to show performance of the system in locating uniform and pitting corrosions in stable state using corrosive solutions and electrochemical environment. A commercial AE system was used to assure the AE activities with the location results. Experimental results showed the ability of the AE source location system to locate corrosion sources. In conclusion, the proposed AE source-location system is appropriate and practicable to locate corrosion with flexibility and affordability.