Acoustic emission testing of a landing gear component

Acoustic emission (AE) monitoring was performed on an aluminium landing gear component that was undergoing testing to investigate its fracture resilience. The type of component was identified from FE analysis and previous fatigue testing. The component was loaded in fatigue for 500 flight cycles before re-greasing of the bearings. After 2,000 cycles the component was removed for NDT inspection. The AE investigations were implemented after 83,000 flight cycles had been completed. NDT at this point had shown that the component contained no damage. This paper presents the findings of the final 2,000 cycles monitored. The AE investigation detected and located, using both linear and planar location approaches, one region of activity around the grease pin. Fretting damage at this location was confirmed using dye pentrant testing. It was also shown that the increase in rate of detected activity is a significant tool in the identification of damage in landing gear components.