A Novel Approach for Continuous
As AE mainly detects high frequency elastic waves, it
Acoustic Emission Monitoring
on Rotating Machinery Without the
Use of Slip Ring
T. H. Loutas
J. Kalaitzoglou
G. Sotiriades
V. Kostopoulos
e-mail: kostopoulos@mech.upatras.gr
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics,
University of Patras,
Patras GR-26500, Greece
The acoustic emission (AE) technique is a powerful nondestruc-
tive tool for health monitoring of structures and mechanical com-
ponents, especially due to its sensitivity to capture high frequency
signals, which are associated with the early stages of damage
development and evolution. The aim of the present work is two-
fold. The first is the evaluation of a new concept of transducer
mounting on rotating structures without the use of the expensive
solution of the slip ring. The new concept is realized in a single
stage in-house built gearbox setup. The second is the evaluation
of the potential of the acquired with the new concept AE signals in
distinguishing between different types of artificially induced dam-
age on the gears. Run-in tests were carried out to study the effect
of gear damage on the AE recordings. The acoustic emission sig-
nature of the healthy gears is first acquired. Then artificial defects
are seeded and the acquisition is repeated. The AE signals are
analyzed, and their root-mean-square values are calculated. The
capability of the new approach of AE acquisition in discriminat-
ing between different loading and damage states is shown and
discussed. Interesting findings on the effect of the oil temperature
on AE recordings only speculated theoretically so far are also
presented. 关DOI: 10.1115/1.2980380兴
Keywords: acoustic emission, rotating machinery, diagnosis
1 Introduction
The interest for the applications of acoustic emission for con-
dition monitoring in rotating machinery has grown significantly
over the past decade. More specifically the problem of health
monitoring of gearboxes has gathered much effort since gearbox
failures are quite often the reason for production breakdowns in
numerous industrial activities. In an area where vibration moni-
toring dominates for several decades successfully in many indus-
trial applications, acoustic emission offers some attractive advan-
tages over vibrations. First of all, as AE is a nondirectional
technique, one AE sensor is sufficient to perform the task in con-
trast to vibration monitoring, which may require information from
three axes. Since AE is produced at the microscopic level, it is
highly sensitive and offers opportunities for identifying defects at
an earlier stage when compared to other condition monitoring
Contributed by the Technical Committee on Vibration and Sound of ASME for
publication in the JOURNAL OF VIBRATION AND ACOUSTICS. Manuscript received August
8, 2007; final manuscript received June 2, 2008; published online October 15, 2008.
Assoc. Editor: Michael Brennan.
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techniques.
is not affected by structural resonances and typical mechanical
background noise 共under 20 kHz兲.
Sources of AE in rotating machinery include asperities contact,
cyclic fatigue, friction, turbulence, material loss, cavitation, and
leakage. For instance, during the interaction of the surface asperi-
ties, the oil film that covers the teeth locally increases its pressure,
generating a varying pressure profile. This transient pressure pro-
file generates elastic waves that propagate on the surface of the
material as Rayleigh waves, and the displacement of these waves
is measured with an AE sensor. In addition to this continuous type
AE from the asperities contact, any crack initiation and pitting
type of damage can also give rise to significant AE that is captured
by the data acquisition board.
Acoustic emission has attracted attention and was applied to
rotating machinery only since 1990 关1兴. Al-Balushi and Samanta
关2兴 extracted energy-based features from AE transients and related
them to damage, broken teeth, and pitting of gears. Tandon and
Mata 关3兴 applied AE to spur gears in a gearbox test rig. They
simulated pits of constant depth but variable size, and AE param-
eters such as energy, amplitude, and counts were monitored during
the test. AE was proven superior over vibration data on an early
detection of small defects in gears. Singh et al. 关4兴 also applied the
AE technique in condition monitoring of test-rig gearboxes, while
vibration methods was also used for comparative purposes by
placing accelerometers on the gearbox casing. They also con-
cluded that AE provided early damage detection over vibration
monitoring.
Singh et al. 关5兴 also investigated the possibility of AE to detect
crack initiation and growth and found that AE has successfully
monitored the crack onset, while vibration methods could detect
the crack growth only. Sentoku 关6兴 attempted to establish the
function between AE signal descriptors and the health monitoring
of gearboxes. The test showed that AE amplitude and energy in-
creased with an increase in pitting. Toutountzakis et al. 关7兴 inves-
tigated the influence of oil temperature and of the oil film thick-
ness on the AE activity and on AE signals captured during
continuous running of a back-to-back gearbox test rig. It was ob-
served that the AE root mean square 共RMS兲 varied with time as
the gearbox reached a stabilized temperature and the variation in
AE activity RMS could be as much as 33%.
Tan and Mba 关8兴 discussed in more detail the oil temperature
effect on AE and concluded that the source of AE mechanism that
produced the gear mesh bursts was from asperities contact. Tout-
ountzakis and Mba 关9兴 presented some interesting observations on
AE activity due to misalignment and natural pitting and concluded
that the AE technique is applicable for monitoring gear damage.
Finally a comparative study 关10兴 between AE and vibrations was
conducted to show the diagnostic and prognostic capabilities of
each technique in several multiday tests in a single stage gearbox.
In all the aforementioned works, the AE sensor was mounted
upon the gear through the use of slip ring. The slip ring is a rather
expensive solution for health monitoring in industrial applications.
Moreover taking into account that the AE sensor has typically a
mass of some grams, it acts as an additional mass added to the
rotating gear leading to mass imbalance. In the present work a
special device is designed to mount the sensor directly on the gear
through a friction contact with it. This way the sensor is not ro-
tating during the normal operation of the gearbox. AE was moni-
tored during run-in tests in order to identify seeded damage in a
single stage gearbox test rig. Different damage states and load
conditions were applied.
The primary goal of the present work is to evaluate the ability
of the new approach of AE sensor mounting to record AE in
rotating structures, to distinguish between healthy and artificially
defected gears during typical operating conditions, and to investi-
gate how the output load affects the distinction capability.
In Sec. 2 the analytical description of the used experimental
setup and the new in-house developed AE sensor casing details
DECEMBER 2008, Vol. 130 / 064502-1
 Fig. 1 „a… Test-rig setup and „b… details of the gearbox with special AE sensor casing
are provided, whereas in Sec. 3 the methodology followed for the
selection of the location for the sensor placing through attenuation
tests is described. In Sec. 4 the experimental procedure applied is
presented analytically, and the characteristics of the background
noise are discussed. In Sec. 5 the results of the application of AE
for the monitoring of the operating gearbox are depicted and dis-
cussed extensively together with important observations on the oil
temperature impact on the AE recordings. Finally in Sec. 6 con-
clusions are drawn and discussed.
2 Experimental Setup
The test rig consists of two gears made from 045M15 steel with
a module of 3 mm and a pressure angle of 20 deg, which have 53
and 25 teeth. The axes of the gears are supported by two ball
bearings each. All the above are settled in an oil basin in order to
ensure proper lubrication. The gearbox is powered by a motor and
consumes its power on a generator. Their characteristics are as
follows:
• Motor: Single phase type MY 90L-4, 2 HP power, operates
at 220 V and 9.0 A with a current frequency of 50 Hz and
rotates at a maximum of 1500 rpm.
• Generator: Single phase, rotates at 3000 rpm. Under an op-
erating voltage of 115 V produces 36.5 A current, whereas
at 230 V produces 18.3 A.
Figure 1 depicts the experimental setup. The AE sensor is directly
mounted on the gear through a special casing 共see details in Fig.
2兲.
The design incorporates two hollow steel cylinders 共Fig. 2兲: the
one is mounted onto the gearbox case 共1兲 and the other 共2兲 slides
inside the first one until its outer face 共3兲 contacts the surface of
the gear. The constant contact force needed is applied through a
spring 共4兲 located inside the first cylinder, which pushes the
smaller cylinder against the contact surface 共3兲. This contact sur-
face of the small cylinder is made out of bronze to reduce wear
and local temperature increase due to friction. The AE sensor 共5兲
Fig. 2 Sensor casing details
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共pico sensor, Physical Acoustics Corporation 共PAC兲, USA兲 is
mounted and glued inside the small cylinder, against the bronze
head 共3兲. The gear is rectified on the contact location in order to
reduce as much as possible the friction between the two surfaces.
A four channel PCI-2 data acquisition system by PAC was uti-
lized for the AE recording. A pico sensor by PAC with pre-
amplification of 40 dB was used for this study. A sampling rate of
5 MHz was used. The waveform length was selected so as to
record continuous AE during one full gear revolution, giving a
waveform of 40 ms duration at 1500 rpm revolution speed of the
large gear.
3 Attenuation Results
Attenuation measurements of the propagating AE signals were
conducted in order to verify that the chosen location upon the
large gear is suitable for the sensor placement. Attenuation tests
are important since the AE waves propagate over long distances
and especially through interfaces affecting significantly the sig-
nal’s amplitude. More specifically artificial AE sources are simu-
lated through lead pencil breaks in several locations of the gear-
box. In the schematic representations of Figs. 3共a兲 and 3共b兲, the
spots where the pencil leads were broken upon the gearbox are
depicted. Ten lead breaks were conducted at each spot, and mean
attenuation values were calculated. The absolute attenuation re-
sults are presented in Fig. 3共c兲. The largest attenuation of simu-
lated AE events was observed upon the bearing at point H, an
expected outcome due to the large number of interfaces the AE
signal must pass through.
4 Testing Procedure
Prior to testing, the gearbox operated for at least 2 h under a
1 kW load until the oil temperature was stabilized 共i.e., did not
change over 1 ° C for at least 5 min兲. The stabilization of the lu-
bricant temperature was of prime importance since previous stud-
ies 关5,6兴 have suggested that acoustic emission is highly affected
by the oil temperature. This is expected and can be explained by
the fact that the oil temperature affects the oil film thickness and
thus the contact pressure distribution, which in turn gives rise to
acoustic emission. After the temperature stabilization, the gearbox
operated under for half an hour under certain combinations of
damage and loading states. Acoustic emission was recorded dur-
ing the whole procedure. Three states of damage were introduced
into the large gear. No defect, one defected tooth 共Fig. 4兲, two
defected teeth 共Fig. 5兲.
The gearbox operated at three different loadings for each dam-
age state, namely, 共a兲 no load 共b兲 0.5 kW electric load consump-
tion on the output axis, and 共c兲 1 kW load. With 关A兴, 关B兴, and 关C兴
we denote the three damage states of no defect, one defected
tooth, and two defected teeth, respectively. Loads 0, 1, and 2
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 Fig. 3 Attenuation results

correspond to no load, 0.5 kW load on the axis, and 1 kW load on

the output axis. Table 1 summarizes the notations.

5 Results and Discussion

Concerning the background noise of the system, before the start
of the test it was necessary to know the level of the background
noise level. A run-in test without the pinion was carried out for
this reason. Acoustic emission generated by the rotating gear with-
out meshing was recorded. The AE activity during this procedure
was considered as noise as long as there is no meshing, but only
rotation, friction of the sensor upon the gear, and other external
sources contribute to AE generation. The RMS level of the back-
ground noise was recorded for about 20 min and is presented in
Fig. 4 One tooth defected Fig. 6. It is obvious that the RMS does not exceed the 0.012 V
level, which is significantly lower compared to the AE RMS level
recorded during the actual tests 共see Figs. 9–11兲.
For an AE signal consisting of N samples, x关0兴 , x关1兴 , . . . , x关N
− 1兴, its RMS value is given by

xRMS =
1
冉兺 冊
N n=0
N−1

x关n兴2
1/2

共1兲

A typical AE signal recorded during the tests is shown in Fig. 7.

Figure 8 shows the results of the fast Fourier transform 共FFT兲
Fig. 5 Two teeth defected applied on the AE signal. Frequencies of 20– 200 kHz seem to
dominate with some high frequency components in the region of
300– 550 kHz.
RMS proved efficient among other AE descriptors in discrimi-
nating between different damage and loading states. The results
Table 1 Electric load and artificial defect notations follow in graphs of RMS versus time. For the defect state 关A兴 共no
defect兲, Fig. 9 shows the complete experimental procedure. The
Defect Load Corresponds gearbox started to operate under load 2 for about 2.5 h or about
notation Corresponds to notation to
9000 s, until the lubricant temperature was stabilized at about
关A兴 No defect 0 No load 44° C. This figure also proves how drastically acoustic emission
关B兴 One defected tooth 1 0.5 kW load 共RMS兲 changes under the increasing oil temperature and confirms
关C兴 Two defected teeth 2 1 kW load the conclusions of Toutountzakis et al. 关7兴, Tan and Mba 关8兴, and
Toutountzakis and Mba 关9兴, who supported in their works that oil

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 Fig. 6 RMS level of the background noise

Fig. 7 Typical AE signal over one gear revolution „mV versus samples…

Fig. 8 FFT of the typical AE signal

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 Fig. 9 RMS level for defect †A‡—all loads

temperature variations affect significantly acoustic emission re-
cordings and should always be taken into account. In fact it is the
oil film thickness that is directly affected by the oil temperature.
The variation in the oil film thickness affects the local contact
pressure profile developed upon the gears, which in turn affects
the mechanism of elastic wave generation, i.e., acoustic emission.
After the oil temperature stabilized, load is dropped to 0 共no
load兲 for half an hour and the RMS values fall from 0.15 V to
about 0.05 V mean values. Load 1 is then applied for another half
hour and the RMS rises significantly, while in the last half hour at
load 2 the RMS increase is less, with some overlap being evident
in the RMS values.
In the case of defect 关B兴, which corresponds to one defected
tooth on the gear, Fig. 10 summarizes the findings of the RMS for
the three different load levels. The oil temperature is stabilized at
about 45° C after about 2 h 共approximately 7800 s兲 operation time
at load 2. Acoustic emission—regarding the RMS of the AE
waveforms at least—rapidly changes in the first 2000 s with the
rising oil temperature.
The load discrimination capability of acoustic emission is clear
as the RMS values seem to increase in proportion to the applied
load and surprisingly without almost any overlap at all. The same
procedure was followed for defect 关C兴—two defected teeth—as
well. The constant temperature was reached after a 2.8 h operation
at load level 2, and it is about 45° C. RMS values are again seri-
ously affected by the oil temperature and rise accordingly. After
the constant temperature Tc was reached, loads 0, 1, and 2 were
applied. From Fig. 11 it is clear that the RMS values of AE re-
cordings increase with the increasing output load. Another very
interesting remark concluded by the RMS values in Figs. 9–11 is
that after the gearbox operation at load levels 0 and 1, whenever
load 2 is applied the RMS values return to the same values
reached at the latest stage of temperature stabilization operation.
The mean values and standard deviations were calculated for
each defect and load case, and the results are presented in Table 2.
The standard deviations are rather significant, about one order of
magnitude less than the mean, and this is why fluctuations over
the mean RMS values are observed.

Fig. 10 RMS level for defect †B‡—all loads

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 Fig. 11 RMS level for defect †C‡—all loads
6 Conclusions
This study presents a new concept of recording continuous
acoustic emission from rotating machinery, avoiding the expen-
sive solution of using a slip ring. It also verifies the abilities of
acoustic emission toward health monitoring of gearboxes and ro-
tating systems in general. Diagnosis of faults in these systems is
not an easy task, and researchers so far have utilized the AE
method with not much success. The most significant outcome of
this study is the ability of the proposed sensor mounting alterna-
tive to acquire acoustic emission properly, as well as the success-
ful discrimination between the different damage and loading states
in an operating gearbox by the RMS values of the AE signals. An
important observation concerns the oil temperature effect on the
AE recordings. Oil temperature proved to play an important role
and severely affected the RMS level of the acquired waveforms.
Diagnostically RMS values of AE signals coming from the gear-
box monitoring seem to be sensitive to different types of artificial
gear defects as well as applied loads. Practically, of course, a
Table 2 Mean RMS values and standard deviations
Load
Defect 0 1 2 38, pp. 469–480.
关A兴 0.0477⫾ 0.0037 0.0713⫾ 0.0056 0.0833⫾ 0.0063
关B兴 0.0555⫾ 0.0048 0.0913⫾ 0.0058 0.1322⫾ 0.0103
关C兴 0.0353⫾ 0.0041 0.0590⫾ 0.0040 0.1125⫾ 0.0076
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gearbox operates under variable conditions and loads, and real
damage may be much more subtle than missing or broken teeth,
etc. Future research in the laboratory will be focused on this di-
rection, but the primary results on AE monitoring in gearboxes are
encouraging.
References
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