Abstract
Numerous cases of damage and deterioration of rubber bearings have been reported. The authors have conducted experimental studies on damage evaluation of the rubber bearings using Acoustic Emission (AE), which is a non-destruction inspection method. However, because elastic waves propagate in rubber with low velocity , there still remains some issues with the detection accuracy of AE due to those elastic waves.
In this study, steel rods were inserted into natural rubber specimen and then a confirmation experiment of the detection accuracy of a peeling sound was conducted. The peeling sound was generated while the steel rods were extracted after only the tip was vulcanization-adhered. Regarding the distance between the tip of the steel rod and the rubber surface, seven patterns were prepared. Meanwhile, concerning the AE sensor, two types of resonance frequencies of 60 kHz and 150 kHz were prepared. In order to identify the position of the generated peeling sound, identification accuracy of the peeling position was confirmed using a three dimensional location analysis.
The results showed that the peeling position inside the rubber can be determined with a high degree of accuracy.
