In view of the location accuracy decrease of time division of arriving (TDOA) method in non-uniform temperature field
the location performance of acoustic emission beam-forming was studied.Firstly
the propagation characteristics of acoustic emission signals were obtained by using plate wave theory
and the main factors affecting the accuracy like dispersion phenomenon are analyzed on the basis of the results.Then
the location performance of acoustic emission beam-forming based on uniform linear array wss explored by numerical simulation
and show that the positioning accuracy on sensors array direction is stable in certain speed range.The artificial acoustic emission sources which were created by breaking a mechanical pencil lead on the plate surface before and after heating were implemented to verify the simulation.The results were analyzed and show that the acoustic emission beam-forming method has high location accuracy in non-uniform temperature field and good prospect of application for positioning stator-rotor rub of aero-engine in which stator has uneven temperature.