Material Stream Characterization with Acoustic Emission Technology

Knowing the composition of a material stream can lead to improved materials handling and better process control and therefore to a better overall efficiency of the plant. As stated in [NIE14] several sensor types are used for material identification and characterization. Most common are visual sensors, laser-induced fluorescence, x-ray transmission, near infrared and Raman spectroscopy.
The target of this paper is to present a new method of an online material stream analysis based on Acoustic Emission (AE) Technology. In order to show the potential of an online AE analysis two different approaches are presented and discussed separately. In both approaches AE data is gathered and analyzed with respect to material composition.