Acoustic Emission Detection and Location for Hypervelocity Impacts

There is already so much space debris in low orbits that it poses a significant threat to satellites and other spacecrafts in orbit. The satellites and the spacecrafts will lose their functions when space debris impacts on the key parts of them. Hypervelocity impacts on aluminum plates are utilized to simulate the impacts resulted from space debris. Acoustic emission (AE) analysis is used for characterization and location for hypervelocity Impacts. Two different Acoustic Emission (AE) sensors are used to detect the arrival time and signals of the hits. Hypervelocity Impacts are generated with a two-stage light-gas gun firing small aluminum ball projectiles(3.97 mm, 6.35 mm). In the impact studies, the results make clears that the location obtained by the resonant R15 sensors are as excellently accurate to these obtained by wideband sensors. The multi-source impact simultaneously is observed during the impacts in that it is difficult for the current conventional localized-algorithm to locate the sources.