An Experimental Study of Monitoring Internal Leakage in Water Hydraulic Cylinders Using Acoustic Emission

Abstract This paper studies experimentally acoustic emission (AE) to monitor internal leakage in modern water hydraulic cylinders. A series of experiments has been designed and carried out. Through these experiments, the background noise induced by the operation of a water hydraulic system is carefully determined, AE signals generated by a water hydraulic cylinder operating under different piston-sealing conditions are characterized, and AE signals generated by internal leakage in a water hydraulic cylinder are also characterized. The measured AE signals are analyzed using the power spectral density (PSD) technique. The results show that AE signals are sensitive to the internal leakage in a water hydraulic cylinder and are not affected by background noise. We conclude that AE can be used to develop an effective technique to monitor internal leakage in modern water hydraulic cylinders.