Multi frequency acoustic emission micromachined transducers for non-destructive evaluation of structural health

A method for performing non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of structural health of a structure:

• coupling an NDE chip package to the structure, the chip package comprising a chip having a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) acoustic emissions (AE) transducer system comprising at least first and second MEMS AE transducers integrated together in the chip, the first and second MEMS AE transducers operating over at least first and second frequency ranges, respectively, that are separate from one another, the first and second MEMS AE transducers generating first and second electrical responses in response to receiving acoustic emissions in the first and second frequency ranges, respectively, the first and second electrical responses being continuously electrically combined to generate a combined electrical response and output from the chip package on a single channel of the chip package;
• with a data acquisition system in communication with the chip package, receiving the combined electrical response output on the single channel and performing a signal processing algorithm that processes the combined electrical response to extract the first and second electrical responses from the combined electrical response;
• and
• evaluating the first and second electrical responses to determine the structural health of the structure.