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The detection and characterization of surface breaking cracks in steel prior to damage is a technologically as well as economically important task especially for safety-relevant structures. Detection of small cracks already during the steel production process might significantly reduce the risk of failure and reduce production costs due to an obsolete post-processing.
However, the hostile environmental conditions (high temperature specimens) together with very strict requirements in current steel production (production speeds, in-line testing and evaluation) are challenging and render many well-established NDE techniques hardly applicable.
We present an approach to use laser thermographic testing as a fast, remote and contactless NDE method, that addresses these challenges and might ultimately allow for online crack detection.
The basic idea of laser thermographic testing, introduced by Kubiak in 1968, is the monitoring of the heat flow as induced by local heating. Disturbances within the heat flow generated by the presence of surface cracks can then be analyzed by image processing algorithms, as we have shown in previous work.
The aim of the presented work is to advance laser thermographic testing to be applicable to the specific conditions of steel production environments. This purpose was met by the development of a laboratory setup that allows us to simulate production conditions, as rolling speed, specimen temperature, laser heating power and study their influence on crack detection performance. This parametric study enabled us to develop and improve data processing and crack detection algorithms with the final goal of providing optimized in-line crack detection. The studies were accompanied by comprehensive FEM simulations to intensify the understanding of the contrast formation as well as the crucial parameters influencing the performance of the method.
At present, to produce renewable energy offshore wind farms play an important role. The available space combined with the more valuable wind conditions make offshore locations very attractive for wind powered energy production. In Europe a significant number of offshore wind farms already exist, especially in the North and Baltic Sea. In future this trend will continue, and further offshore wind farms will be built. The majority of offshore wind turbines are mounted on steel foundation structures. Due to the high-cyclic loading by wind and waves fatigue stress plays a substantial role regarding structural safety.
Besides the consideration of fatigue within the design process, to monitor existing steel structures for potential fatigue cracks during their life time is a major topic and a challenge.
For the structures of the offshore wind turbines are large and partially under water effective reliable methods for the detection of fatigue cracks are required.
This contribution presents investigations on different crack detection methods applied at high-cycle fatigue tests on small-scale welded steel samples as well as on large-scale welded steel components. The tests were conducted at the BAM laboratories. For crack detection mainly three different methods were used and compared. The first method regards to the measurement of strain by conventionally strain gauges. Secondly, the crack luminescence was used as a new and effective optical method for surface monitoring. And finally, crack detection by pressure differentials of the inner and outer section of tubular steel elements was investigated. A comparison study will emphasize the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods and show which of the described methods is potentially more suitable for an application on real offshore wind structures.
For the generation of renewable energy offshore wind farms play an important role. The majority of these wind generators are connected to steel foundation structures. Steady increasing power output of these wind turbines leads to new challenges as well for engineers of the related support structures. Caused by the high-cyclic loading of these structures by wind and waves fatigue plays a very important role. Besides the consideration of fatigue within the design process it is additionally an important topic and challenge to monitor the existing steel structures relating to potential fatigue cracks occurring during their lifetime. This plays a role for a fundamental understanding of mechanisms as investigated in testing but also for inspection in real structures.
Since the structures of the offshore wind generators are very large and in addition partially under water effective and reliable methods for fatigue crack detection are required. This contribution will present results of recent investigations on different crack detection methods applied on high-cycle fatigue tests on small welded steel samples as well as on welded steel components. The comparison of these measurements will show what are the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods and which method is potentially more suitable for the application on real offshore wind structures. It is outlined where challenges for detection methods exist.
Furthermore, in this context the resulting challenges for the execution of material testing especially caused by the increasing dimensions of wind energy converters will by exemplarily presented.