Foreword

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This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 135, Non-destructive testing, Subcommittee SC9, Acoustic emission testing., in collaboration with the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) Technical Committee CEN/TC 138, Non-destructive testing, in accordance with the Agreement on technical cooperation between ISO and CEN (Vienna Agreement).

This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition (ISO 12716:2001), which has been technically revised.

The main changes are as follows:

terms sorted in order of scientific and technical characteristics;
terms and definitions revised and obsolete terms removed.

Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html.

1 Scope

This document defines the terms used in acoustic emission testing and forms a common basis for standards and general use.

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

3.1 Terms related to the physical nature of acoustic emission

3.2 Terms related to the detection and acquisition of acoustic emission signals

3.3 Terms related to the equipment and accessories used for acoustic emission testing

3.4 Terms related to the analysis of acoustic emission signals

3.5 Terms relating to the application of acoustic emission testing

Bibliography

ISO 12716:2026

Non-destructive testing. Acoustic emission testing. Vocabulary

Current

Published:

13 May 2026

1 Scope