Abstract
No effective method has been established to evaluate internal damage of laminated rubber bearings because it is covered with rubber. This study proposed new health monitoring technique using acoustic emission (AE) method which is one of the non-destructive tests to evaluate damage in the rubber bearings. Cyclic compression tests were performed to the rubber bearings and five AE sensors were attached on the rubber surface. The results showed that AE activities and AE parameters could evaluate the possibility of existing internal damage. Further, the location of internal damage was estimated using source location analysis, and the accuracy of analysis was verified using the microscope observation of cutting plane of the specimen.
