The location of an acoustic emission (AE) source is crucial for predicting and controlling potential hazards. In this paper, a novel weighted linear least squares location method for AE sources without measuring wave velocity is proposed. First, the governing equations of each sensor are established according to the sensor coordinates and arrival times. Second, a mean reference equation is established by taking the mean of the squared governing equations. Third, the system of linear equations can be obtained based on the mean reference equation, and their residuals are estimated to obtain their weights. Finally, the AE source coordinate is obtained by weighting the linear equations and inserting the parameter constraint. The AE location method is verified by a pencil lead break experiment, and the results show that the locating accuracy of the proposed method is significantly higher than that of traditional methods. Furthermore, the simulation test proves that the proposed method also has a better performance (location accuracy and stability) than the traditional methods under any given scale of arrival errors.
Keywords: acoustic emission; equation residuals; source location; wave velocity.