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In a context of nuclear safety experiment monitoring with the non destructive testing method of acoustic emission, we study the impact of the test device on the interpretation of the recorded physical signals by using spectral finite element modeling. The numerical results are validated by comparison with real acoustic emission data obtained from previous experiments. The results show that several parameters can have significant impacts on acoustic wave propagation and then on the interpretation of the physical signals. The potential position of the source mechanism, the positions of the receivers and the nature of the coolant fluid have to be taken into account in the definition a pre-processing strategy of the real acoustic emission signals. In order to show the relevance of such an approach, we use the results to propose an optimization of the positions of the acoustic emission sensors in order to reduce the estimation bias of the time-delay and then improve the localization of the source mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]