The use of acoustic emission as an aid to evaluating the handle of leather

Research has been carried out to evaluate the use of acoustic emission to s tudy leather. Unlike other research the technique reported here describes t he measurement of sound in the audible range. Research has been ongoing to evaluate methods to quantify the subjective properties of leather (i.e. the handle of leather) and it has been possible to quantify leather handle usi ng data obtained from physical test methods (it is planned to publish this separately). The work presented in this paper illustrates how the acoustic properties relate to leather handle. and show how the technology can be use d to improve the correlation with subjective assessment. This work is subje ct to a patent application (application number GB0016063.0).