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- CCS (7)
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- Steel (7)
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- Strain sensor (6)
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- Structural health monitoring (5)
- CO2-storage (4)
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- Fibre optic sensors (4)
Laser thermal shock experiments - performance and evaluation on the basis of advanced ceramics
(2011)
The thermal shock behaviour in air and vacuum of three different advanced ceramics is investigated by introducing a new testing method. This thermal shock testing system permits the reproducible setting of defined temperature profiles in thin disks. In order to perform heating - up thermal shock experiments under reproducible conditions and to measure the transient temperature fields, a laser beam is directed spirally across the surface of the specimen. In this process, the specimen is heated up faster than the temperature gradient is compensated by thermal conductivity. Resulting temperature fields were recorded space and time resolved. Based on the knowledge of the local temperature distribution at the moment of failure, the critical fracture stress can be calculated. The scatter of thermal shock strength is quantitatively determined for the tested ceramics by using a improved statistical method.
Three new offset Delta11B isotope reference materials for environmental boron isotope studies
(2011)
The isotopic composition of boron is a well established tool in various areas of Science and industry. Boron isotope compositions are typically reported as 5nB values which indicate the isotopic difference of a sample relative to the isotope reference material NIST SRM 951.
A significant drawback of all of the available boron isotope reference materials is that none of them covers a natural boron isotope composition apart from NIST SRM 951. To fill this gap of required 5UB reference materials three new solution boric acid reference materials were produced, which cover 6096o of the natural boron isotope Variation (-20 to 40%oo B) of about 100%o. The new reference materials are certified for their B values and are commercially available through European Reference Materials® (http://wwrv.enn-cmi.org). The newly produced and certified boron isotope reference materials will allow straightforward method Validation and quality control of boron isotope data.
Wear tests are often used in engine development in order to characterize the functional profile of surfaces interacting with lubricants. This paper proposes a new test procedure to determine Stribeck-type curves for the tribosystem piston ring/cylinder liner involving test pieces prepared from engine components. The Variation of the friction coefficient with sliding speed depends on the structure and Constitution of the base oil, the viscosity index, the surface topography of the liner and ring, and the friction modifiers used. Novel organic friction modifiers of low molecular mass not only reduce the friction coefficients under mixed / boundary lubrication, but also in the fluid film regime. In addition, the influence of surface roughness on the wettability of surfaces can be significant for both static and dynamic wetting. For this reason, the interaction of the lubricant with the surfaces was also investigated to enable a correlation between the surface properties of the liquid and solid phases and the tribological behavior.
Different types of lasers are used nowadays for a number of technological Solutions, Modem high power solid-state lasers with high brightness of Radiation like Fiber or disc lasers find ever more applications in welding technology. Apart from the replacement of the CC>2-iasers traditionaHy used fcr these purposes, they provide new technological possibilities of metal treatment, such as using industrial robots and remote welding with high power laser radiation. The possibility of flexible optical fiber delivery of the radiation to any point gives a great technological advantage and permits welding processes to be realized with complicated weld seam geomelries and different positions using a minimum of additional fixtures. The short wavelength of the high power solid state lasers (1.07 ’m) causes another advantage. The coefflcient of inverse 170
Bremsstrahlung absorption from free electrons in plasma for such radiation is about 100 times lower than for the COi-iaser radiation. Owing to this fact, using the solid state lasers allows it to avoid a negative influence of the welding plume.
However, a short wavelength can lead to another kind of laser Radiation attenuation, which is connected with the formation of a cloud consisting of small metal particles that absorb and scatter laser radiation. This cloud arises due to the condensation of hot metal vapor by flying out from the deep Penetration channel and broadening in relatively cold atmosphere over the metal Surface.
Some theoretical and experimental approaches were made in advance in Order to estimate the influence of the Condensed particles on laser radiation and welding quality.
In this paper a systematic study including the determination of the Cloud size and its dynamical characteristics is presented. The results were obtained within the scope of the first stage of the metal vapor condensation process Investigation during welding with high power fiber lasers.
Dealing with first corrosion screening experiments to predict the reliability and safety of Germanys first Carbon Capture and Storage site in the northern Bassin of Germany, northwest of the Capital Berlin, laboratory experiments have been established to simulate the particular conditions at T=60 °C, highly saline aquifer water similar to 'Stuttgart Aquifer', but only at ambient pressure. With mounting 2 independent full 2-grade titanium autoclave systems (running up to 250 bar and 300 °C) pressures up to p=100 bar are possible. In 2010 a specific corrosion chamber of 2-grade titanium working up to 100 °C, flowing aqui fer water with different gas mixtures was designed to fit to a high cycle fatigue testing machine. Long term fatigue experiments simulating fatigue crack growth under corrosive environments will soon start. These experiments may not only help engineering a CCS site, but results can be used to improve the maintenance of geothermal energy production sites, especially moved parts such as pumps and shafts.
The CCS technique involves the compression of emission gasses in deep geological layers. To guarantee the safety of the site, CO2-corrosion of the injection pipe steels has to be given special attention when engineering CCS-sites. To get to know the corrosion behaviour samples of the heat treated steel 1.72252CrMo4, used for casing, and the stainless injection-pipe steel 1.4034 X46Cr13 were kept at T=60 °C and ambient pressure as well as p=100 bar for 700 h - 8000 h in a CC 2-saturated synthetic aquifer environment similar to possible geological on-shore CCS-sites in the northern German Basin. The isothermal corrosion behaviour obtained by mass gain of the steels in the gas phase, the liquid phase and the intermediate phase gives surface corrosion rates around 0.1 to 0.8 mm/year at ambient pressure and much lower about 0.02 to 0.2 mm/year at 100 bar where the CO 2 is in its supercritical state. Severe pit corrosion with pit heights around 4.5 mm are only located on the 42CrMo4 steel. Main phase of the continuous complicated multi-layered carbonate/oxide structure is siderite FeCO 3 in both types of steel.
The presently active standards on Computed Radiography (CR) need a major revision. It was observed by many users that the image quality for class B of EN 14784-2 is not achievable under the same exposure conditions as used for film exposure. A mathematical model was developed and tested, which allows the calculation of the image quality, proven by image quality indicators (IQI), depending on the fixed pattern noise and the efficiency of the used imaging plate (IP) scanner system. All tested IP scanner systems provide a fixed correlation between the measured signal/noise ratio (SNR) and the grey values in the digital images. The maximum achievable SNRmax depends on the fixed pattern noise of the plate (high dose limit). Depending on the exposure dose an optimum visibility of IQIs can be predicted by calculation and measured considering the attenuation coefficient for calculation of the contrast/noise ratio (CNR). The diameter of the just visible wire is proportional to 1/sqrt(CNR). The optimum tube voltage for best visibility of IQIs and maximum CNR depend on the exposure dose. The optimum tube voltage for best visibility is achieved only at exposures with high dose. A dose dependant optimal tube voltage was not observed for film radiography.
Instrumented measurements on radioactive waste disposal containers during experimental drop testing
(2011)
In context with disposal container safety assessment of containers for radioactive waste the German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) performed numerous drop tests in the last years. The tests were accompanied by extensive and various measurement techniques especially by instrumented measurements with strain gages and accelerometers. The instrumentation of a specimen is an important tool to evaluate its mechanical behavior during impact. Test results as deceleration-time and strain-time functions constitute a main basis for the validation of assumptions in the safety analysis and for the evaluation of calculations based on finite-element methods. Strain gauges are useful to determine the time dependent magnitude of any deformation and the associated stresses. Accelerometers are widely used for the measuring of motion i.e. speed or the displacement of the rigid cask body, vibration and shock events. In addition high-speed video technique can be used to visualize and analyze the kinematical impact scenario by motion analysis. The paper describes some selected aspects on instrumented measurements and motion analysis in context with low level radioactive waste (LLW) container drop testing
The failure of laminates usually is initiated by the failure of the plies with the maximum transverse stresses. The failure of those plies generally reduces the load carrying capability of the laminate, even though they carry only a small part of the external load. The analysis of failure under off-axis stresses accordingly is essential for the prediction of the strength of laminates. This is taken into account in the "mechanisms based failure criteria" e.g. by Puck. Most of these inter fiber failure criteria are not based on the micromechanics of the failure process but on prescribed stress interaction functions. The failure of plies under transverse loading obviously is governed by the bond strength between fiber and matrix fiber. The interfacial debonding was studied e.g. by Paris et al. and Corea et al.. The bond strength between fiber and matrix usually is measured by using micromechanical tests e.g. pull-out, push-out or fragmentation tests. Stress analyses as well as fracture mechanical analyses show that the interfacial failure over a large range is dominated by shear stresses (Kim and Mai, Pisanova et al, Marotzke and Qiao). The stress distribution arising in those experiments however differs from the stresses acting in a lamina under transverse loading. In transverse failure of a lamina, radial stresses as well as shear stresses are dominating the failure process of the interface. In addition longitudinal shear stresses are present. Experimental work concerning off-axis loading of single fibers was done e.g. by Tandon and Kim and by Ogihara and Koyanagi. They studied the influence of the fiber alignment by using a specimen in form of a cruciform with skew wings.
The extremely low acoustic impedance of polypropylene ferroelectret combined with its piezoelectric properties makes this material suitable for construction of aircoupled ultrasonic transducers for non-destructive testing. For the fabrication of transducers with a stable quality, the reproducibility of their key parameters is of interest.
The reproducibility was evaluated by means of (i) impedance spectroscopy and (ii) pulse-echo measurements. (i) Impedance spectroscopy was applied to identify the resonance frequency, the coupling factor and the acoustic impedance of several nominally identical transducers. (ii) Pulse-echo measurements yielded the signal form of these transducers.
The variation of the signal amplitude measured with pulseecho technique was about 10 dB. A part of this variation Comes from the deposition of transducer electrodes and another part from local variations of ferroelectret properties. The variation of the signal amplitude was caused by the observed variation of the coupling factor, which was also about 10 dB. The variation of the acoustic impedance was only about 1 dB, thus having no effect on the variation of the signal amplitude.
These results indicate that the variability can be reduced by improving the control of electrode deposition and by optimizing the production technology affecting the reproducibility of material properties.
Within the framework of the G8 partnership, the German Ministry of Economics and Technology has been realizing a 300 EUR million project of the storage of decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines based on a German-Russian agreement. The main parts of the project are the construction of the long-term storage facility as well as a radioactive waste storage facility at Sayda Bay. Long-term interim storage facility for this particular case has a period of about 70 years. The Energiewerke Nord GmbH (EWN) under the technical controlling of BAM carried out the project management. Foremost in this presentation is the finalization of the long-term storage facility for nuclear submarine compartments and the planning and realization of the radioactive waste storage building with special emphases of the parts carried out by BAM. Because BAM staff cannot stay permanently on site, a random inspection of different topics was the bases for the activities of BAM. The key aspects of activities are the long-term storage of the nuclear compartments, maintenance building, the decommissioning of the compartments and the transportation of the very heavy weight compartments (1600 metric tons). Details relating of the progress of the construction work as well as information about technical recommendations will also be briefly illustrated. Within this scope, problems and difficulties during the construction of the storage facility as well as logistical challenges including transportation of the reactor compartments will also be discussed.
The present contribution highlights recent trends in investigating hydrogen diffusion and cracking in steel welds. For such studies, supermartensitic stainless steels (SMSS) have exemplarily been selected. These materials have been used for offshore and marine constructions for about two decades now. They present a versatility of improved properties such as high strength to thickness ratio, good weldability and good corrosion resistance. However, as shown by respective failure cases, SMSS welds might become prone to hydrogen assisted cracking and the degradation phenomena are more easily to investigate due to the nearly homogeneous martensitic microstructure than in other materials. Generally, it has to be distinguished between cracking that occurs during or shortly after fabrication welding, or during subsequent operation of SMSS components. In order to achieve crack avoidance during fabrication and service, conclusive test sequences have to be applied, ranging from field tests at real components and full scale tests investigating the materials behavior under real service conditions to basic and small scale tests, such as tensile and corrosion tests, oriented more towards a materials ranking. Considerable testing of SMSS welds has been carried out and the present paper particularly summarizes spotlights on 1:1 scale component testing of welded tubulars, slow strain rate testing and basic tests oriented to elucidate the hydrogen behavior and degradation in SMSS weld microstructures. Also, permeation tests, hydrogen dependent degradation of mechanical properties and thermal desorption spectroscopy are adressed. As a specific item, first results of lately conducted investigations for tracking hydrogen movement in such weld microstructures by using high energy synchrotron radiation are elucidated.
Micro gears are applied in an increasing quantity in many applications. Therefore, precise measurements are of growing importance to ensure their quality. This contribution describes the measurement of gears of a micro planetary gear set with a tactile probe, a tactile-optical probe, an optical sensor, and computed tomography (CT). For the tactile measurements, a high precision piezoresistive microprobe was used. A so-called fiber probe was applied for tactile-optical measurements. This probe applies image processing to determine the position of the tactile probing element. For all tactile and tactile-optical measurements, single point probing was used. The optical measurements were carried out with an imaging sensor based on focus variation. Due to limited accessibility, on some gears not all regions could be measured by the optical sensor and the tactile-optical probe. In contrast to this, with CT the whole part could be measured with high point density. We used a micro-CT system and carried out measurements with Synchrotron-CT. All the sensors used deliver measurement data in Cartesian coordinates. It is a challenge to transfer these data into coordinates in which gear parameters are defined. For this, special attention must be paid to the determination of the gear axis and to the orientation of the teeth. The applied procedures are detailed for different micro gears. The comparison between data of different measurements was carried out successfully. The deviations between the CT data and the tactile or tactile-optical data lie in the range of only a few micrometers.
To improve the adhesives used for restoring stained glass windows, various adhesives were tested and modified. Stained glass windows often show gaps that are too wide to be glued with conventional adhesives, and complementing the gap with spare glass is very time-consuming.
To solve this problem, a filler with improved adhesive strength was developed to bridge wider gaps and cracks. The new filler combines glass adhesives with specially treated glass powder.
Three different glass adhesives were selected and mixed with the specially treated glass powder. The adhesive – glass powder mixture developed was then subjected to accelerated aging and analysed with Fourier transform infrared analysis, scanning electron microscopy, colourimetry, and bending and tensile tests. The results were excellent and the mixture was subsequently used to restore glass windows from four 19th-century churches and chapels. The restoration process was described in conjunction with the advantages of using this approach.
This new adhesive – glass powder mixture provides an adhesive process that can be adapted to the special needs of any object being restored and thus provides a ready answer to the specific damage of each object.
When engineering a Carbon Capture and Storage site (CCS) local corrosion (pitting) of the injection pipe steel may become an issue when emission gasses from oxyfuel power plants are compressed into deep geological layers. This highly corrosive environment arises when the flue gasses, mainly composed of CO2 , are injected into saline aquifer water. Immediately carbonic acid is formed causing corrosive attack of the injection steels. The influence of heat treatment on the local corrosion resistance was demonstrated in laboratory experiments at 60 °C and ambient pressure for three steels X46Cr13 (1.4034), X20Cr13 (1.4021) and X5CrNiCuNb16-4 (1.4543) under a similar liquid corrosive environment as found at a geological onshore CCS-site in the Northern German Bassin.
The CCS technique involves the compression of emission gasses in deep geological layers. To guarantee the safety of the site, CC>2-corrosion of the injection pipe steels has to be given special attention when engineering CCS-sites. To get to know the corrosion behaviour samples of the heat treated Steel 1.72252CrMo4, used for casing, and the stainless injection-pipe Steel 1.4034 X46Crl3 were kept at T=60 °C and ambient pressure as well as p=100 bar for 700 h - 8000 h in a CC>2-saturated synthetic aquifer environment similar to possible geological onshore CCS-sites in the northern German Basin. The isothermal corrosion behaviour obtained by mass gain of the steels in the gas phase, the liquid phase and the intermediate phase gives surface corrosion rates around 0.1 to 0.8 mm/year at ambient pressure and much lower about 0.02 to 0.2 mm/year at 100 bar where the CO2 is in its supercritical state. Severe pit corrosion with pit heights around 4.5 mm are only located on the 42CrMo4 Steel. Main phase of the continuous complicated multi-layered carbonate/oxide structure is siderite FeCCh in both types of Steel.
The CCS technique involves the compression of emission gasses in deep geological layers. To guarantee the safety of the site, C02-corrosion of the injection pipe steels has to be given special attention when engineering CCSsites. To get to know the corrosion behaviour samples of the heat treated Steel 1.72252CrMo4, used for casing, and the stainless injection-pipe Steel 1.4034 X46Cr 13 were kept at T=60 °C and ambient pressure as well as p=100 bar for 700 h - 8000 h in a C02-saturated synthetic aquifer environment similar to possible geological on-shore CCS-sites in the northern German Basin. The isothermal corrosion behaviour obtained by mass gain of the steels in the gas phase, the liquid phase and the intermediate phase gives surface corrosion rates around 0.1 to 0.8 mm/year at ambient pressure and much lower about 0.02 to 0.2 mm/year at 100 bar where the C02 is in its supercritical state. Severe pit corrosion with pit heights around 4.5 mm are only located on the 42CrMo4 Steel. Main phase of the continuous complicated multi-layered carbonate/oxide structure is siderite FeCO} in both types of Steel.
Using a new database on Standards in China, we estimate the impact of voluntaiy and mandatory Standards - either harmonized to international norms or purely domestic — on Chinese food exports. The data covers seven Chinese products over the period 1992-2008. We find that Standards have a positive effect on China's export performance, as the benefits to Standardization in terms of reducing potential Information asymmetiy and signaling enhance food safety and quality in foreign markets seem to surpass compliance costs. Our estimation results Show that the positive effect of Chinese Standards is larger when they are harmonized to international measures. The results suggest that there are clear benefits to China’s Steps to base their domestic Standards and regulations on international measures.
In this paper, we explore the relationship between firms' approaches to open innovation and their decision to participate in Standardization alliances. Based on micro data of Dutch Companies surveyed in the Forth Community Innovation Survey we show that the importance of extemal knowledge is positively correlated with participation in Standardization. This suggests that firms aim to access the knowledge of other Companies and stakeholders in Order to increase their own knowledge base. The analysis also shows that firms cooperating with different actors are more likely to join Standardization. Due to the positive relationships with incoming knowledge spillovers and forms of Cooperation, we conclude that Standardization represents a specific form of collaborative knowledge-sharing and knowledge-creating strategy. In addition, we are able to show that absorptive capacity measured via Companies’ research intensity is promoting the involvement in Standardization. Besides the focus on knowledge and Cooperation variables, we explore the traditionally considered factors for alliances Formation and show that firm size, export activities and patent protection are positively correlated with participation in Standardization.
Influence of the main laser welding parameters on process stability and resulting weld quality were investigated. Effects of weld edge preparation on the weld appearance and quality were considered. The obtained welded joints were subjected to radiographic tests for detection of internal imperfections. Metallurgical characterisation of the samples regarding the resulting phase composition and hardness was conducted. Tensile and potentiodynamic tests were performed to evaluate the mechanical and corrosion properties. The results provide an insight into the advantages and limitations of the laser welding process for joining high-manganese alloyed stainless steels. Conditions for the production of defect-free and corrosion-resistant welds having good mechanical properties could be determined.
Today, building is a complicated commercial process characterised by legalised agreements between all participants. For commercial building projects, all materials and constructions have to conform to building standards and regulations. Material properties must be reproducible in standardised test procedures. This also applies for the control of the quality of production of earth building materials and constructions. Building conservation is a part of this process. Generally, national building standards have to reflect the current situation of building materials / construction systems of that country for which they have been developed.
new burner concept for peroxy-fuels is proposed. The performance of the proposed peroxy-fuel burner is predicted with the help of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation. It is found that peroxy-fuel burner not only requires considerable less amount of fuel for the same output/power but also at the same time the overall size of the processing unit can be reduced. As peroxy-fuels contain oxygen atoms within the molecule itself a similar to oxy-fuel combustion environment is created without even supplying pure oxygen. CFD simulations also support the above facts and demonstrate the existence of less favorable conditions to form NOx.
Determining scatter ratios at high energies (> ~ 1MeV) presents challenges not immediately obvious from measurements at conventional X-ray energies. This includes reduced attenuation even in heavy elements as well as a stronger forward bias of scattering. In order to check the reliability of different measurement setups with regard to material thicknesses, distances, and collimation, attenuation and scattering were separately simulated using a Monte Carlo model. The simulation results help in understanding the sources of radiation scattered into the detection area, thereby aiding in eliminating undesired contributions.
Biocompatible materials such as titanium are regularly applied in oral surgery. Titanium-based implants for the replacement of missing teeth demand a high mechanical precision in order to minimize micro-bacterial leakage, especially when two-piece concepts are used. Synchrotron-based hard x-ray radiography, unlike conventional laboratory radiography, allows high spatial resolution in combination with high contrast even when micro-sized features in such highly attenuating objects are visualized. Therefore, micro-gap formation at interfaces in two-piece dental implants with the sample under different mechanical loads can be studied. We show the existence of micro-gaps in implants with conical connections and study the mechanical behavior of the mating zone of conical implants during loading. The micro-gap is a potential source of implant failure, i.e., bacterial leakage, which can be a stimulus for an inflammatory process.
This contribution describes a computationally efficient ray tracing algorithm for evaluating transducer generated ultrasonic wave fields in anisotropic materials such as austenitic cladded and austenitic weld components. According to this algorithm, ray paths are traced during its propagation through various layers of the material and at each Interface the problem of reflection and transmission is solved. The presented algorithm evaluates the transducer generated ultrasonic fields accurately by taking in to account the directivity, divergence, density of rays, phase relations as well as transmission coefficients. The ray tracing algorithm is able to calculate the ultrasonic wave fields generated by a point source as well as a finite dimension transducer. The simulation results are compared quantitatively with the results obtained from Elastodynamic Finite Integration Technique (EFIT) on several configurations generally occuring in the ultrasonic non destructive testing of anisotropic materials. The excellent agreement between both models confirms the validity of the presented ray tracing algorithm. Finally, the ray tracing model results are also validated by means of experiments.
Cathodic protection (CP) is a common method for rehabilitation of reinforced concrete structures suffering from Chloride induced corrosion. A sufficient protection of the corroding rebar can be ensured by use of several protection criteria. The use of these assessment criteria, in particular the so called 100 mV-criterion, can lead to erroneous resuits for certain unconventional arrangements of rebar and cp anode.
Therefore a joint research project of the Institute for Building Materials Research, RWTH-Aachen University, Germany, (ibac) and the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Berlin, Germany, (BAM) has been set up to determine the applicability of CP under arbitrary geometrical conditions. A special focus was set on the applicability of surface applied anode Systems for protection of the reinforcement of structures opposite to the accessible side (e.g. outer side of tunnel Shell, Bridge deck protected from inside a box girder) In this paper, the impact of the time dependent changes of the Polarisation behaviour of the rebar on the current and potential distribution is shown by means of parametric studies using the FEM method.
Monitoring of corrosion protection in reinforced concrete structures using an integrated pH optode
(2011)
Corrosion in steel-reinforced concrete structures is a critical issue. Corrosion appears if the pH value of the concrete matrix decreases due to deterioration of the Calcium hydroxide layer on the Steel surface. The safest Information about potential danger of Steel corrosion is the knowledge of the pH value of concrete. The paper presents a Tiber optic pH sensor for long-term monitoring of the pH value of reinforced concrete structures at risk from corrosion. The sensor probe is small (about 8 mm in diameter), can be embedded into the concrete matrix and observe changes in pH over years. Several sensor probes can be staggered to detect the progression of pH decrease. The pH values can be resolved with 0.1 to 0.2 pH value in the ränge between 12.0 and 9.5. The structure of the pH measurement System, longterm test results and the design to achieve stable probes will be explained. Experienee from test applications of pH sensors embedded in grouted anchors and in concrete components for a cooling tower will be presented.
Sensitive partial discharge (PD) measurements on HV/EHV cable systems are usually based on electrical or electromagnetic PD detection. Unfortunately, interferences may significantly reduce sensitivity, especially in on-site after-installation testing and, even more, in on-line PD monitoring. This paper deals with optical PD detection, which is absolutely immune to any kind of electromagnetic interference. Optical PD detection necessarily requires transparent or translucent insulation systems to be applicable. Stress cone elements for HV/EHV cable accessories meet the requirements for optical PD detection, if made from transparent silicone elastomers.
Fiber optic strain sensors are increasingly used and sensor Systems are provided with specifications. Even if the performance is well specified, the strain characteristics of the sensor, strain transfer factor, mechanical stability under thermal influences, the performance of applied strain sensors can seriously differ from virgin sensor’s the performance. Therefore the contribution considers validation issues to come to reliable strain measurements and how to validate strain measurements of applied sensors. A new validation facility will be presented.
Technical textiles with embedded distributed fiber optic sensors have been developed for the purposes of structural health monitoring in geotechnical and civil engineering. The distributed fiber optic sensors are based on Brillouin Scattering in silica optical fibers and OTDR in polymer optical fibers. Such “smart” technical textiles can be used for reinforcement of geotechnical and masonry structures and the embedded fiber optic sensors can provide information about the condition of the structures and detect the presence of any damages and destructions in real time.
Thus, structural health monitoring of critical geotechnical and civil infrastructures can be realized. The paper highlights the results achieved in this innovative field in the framework of several German and European projects.
The paper presents numerical methods to detect and classify defects and inhomogeneities by means of active thermography. The objective is to determine the wall thickness of structure elements with an inaccessible back wall, for example, of pipes or Containers. As test specimens we used approximately 2 cm thick PVC samples with spatial variations in the back wall geometry. Flash lamps provided the heating. To know the thickness of the wall, we used two inversion methods and compared the results achieved. One is an iterative echo defect shape method and already tested on Steel test specimens with good reconstruction results. The second one is the Levenberg-Marquardt method, applied here to thermographic data for non-destructive testing. Since data capturing using active thermography and the presented numerical methods can easily be automated, the combination of these two procedures is a promising approach providing a broad area of application.
Reinforced concrete piles are used in case of structures that are constructed on soft ground to transfer the loads into deeper strata with sufficient bearing capacity. In order to determine the pile’s behavior and possible damage, static and dynamic pile tests are carried out. Dynamic measurements taken from the pile head can show the bearing behavior and structural integrity by using the theory of wave propagation. In order to receive more precise information about the pile features, now, a string of sensors is embedded at different levels of the pile. A fiber optic strain wave sensor, based on the extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer (EFPI), has already been developed and tested in full-scale field tests by Schallert (2010). It was possible to detect the introduced deformation caused by the static load and the dilatational wave during dynamic loading. Although the full-scale tests were successful, the engineering design of the sensor body left room - from the economical point of view - to be optimized. After laboratory tests with the optimized sensor, a cast-in-situ bored pile has been built at the BAM Test Site Technical Safety in Horstwalde, South of Berlin. Additionally to the EFPI sensors, fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors, temperature sensors and resistance strain gauge (RSG) sensors are embedded in order to compare the signals with each other. In this paper, the modified sensor and the Setup of the cast-in-situ bored pile along with results of dynamic tests are shown.
Structural health monitoring of wind turbine blades by strain measurement and vibration analysis
(2011)
Wind turbine blades have to withstand a high number of load cycles in mostly hard weather conditions over 20 years. In a research project BAM and several partners have designed, evaluated and tested a condition monitoring system for all parts of a wind turbine. At a rotorblade with a length of 58 m fibre bragg grating sensors were applied for in-service strain measurement. Additionally a complex test rig was designed to enable real biaxial loading conditions at a representative test rotor blade to simulate the mechanical loading conditions in the lab. In this test blade with a length of 8 m also fibre bragg grating sensors were implemented to determine their influences for the structure and the condition monitoring system. Vibration measurements were carried out at different test phases. The results were compared with finite element strain and modal analysis.
Integration of magnetic functional components in LTCC Circuit boards calls for co-firing of dielectric and ferrite tapes. Ni-Cu-Zn ferrites with permeability of p=900 were developed which can be fully densified at the Standard LTCC sintering temperature of 900 °C. Successful co-firing of this ferrite with dielectric tapes requires the adaptation of the shrinkage behavior of the materials as well as the thermal expansion during the cooling period - especially in the temperature range below the transformation point of the glassy phase of the dielectric tape. To match these preconditions, a new dielectric LTCC material with steep sintering curve and high thermal expansion coefficient was designed. Sintered multilayer composed of Ni-Cu-Zn ferrite and tailored dielectric tapes are free of cracks and possess no open porosity. No significant interdiffusion between the ferrite and dielectric tapes was found by EDX measurements. Compared to pure ferrite laminates the permeability of co-sintered Ni-Cu-Zn ferrite layers is drastically reduced to 400, i.e. a decrease of more than 50 %.
To investigate the origin of this permeability reduction, Ni-Cu-Zn ferrite laminates were sintered separately, and in combination with alumina release tapes or dielectric tapes, respectively. SEM and EDX analysis of co-fired laminates reveal differences in the ferrite grain growth behavior. Ferrite laminates with homogeneous microstructure and grain size up to 50 pm exhibit large permeability. However, growth of ferrite grains does not take place near the interface between ferrite and release or dielectric tapes. There is a strong correlation between high permeability and volume fraction of large ferrite grains. Regions of fine and coarse grains inside the ferrite layers show different bismuth concentration; the Bi-content is larger in regions of fine ferrite grains.
Fatigue testing in the VHCF ränge requires testing machines with increased frequencies. However, application of energy-saving resonance testing leads to a linkage between test frequency and specimen Parameters. The frequency ränge and the available forces of the testing machine are limiting possible specimen dimensions.
Electrodynamic shakers combine test frequencies up to 4000 Hz with forces in the kN range. Thus, a relatively wide range of tests is possible which allows studying the influence of specimen size on VHCF behaviour.
Electrodynamic shakers as well as the respective Computer control Systems and Vibration measurement techniques are well established in scientific and technical applications. We present results of a first study of VHCF testing on electrodynamic shakers conducted at BAM. Test frequency, specimen size and stress levels have been varied. One goal is to balance the needs of materials testing with the Standard test Systems of environmental Simulation to provide a powerful and flexible tool for very high cycle fatigue testing. Further investigation to optimize the technique is required.
In the approval procedure of transport packages for radioactive materials, the mechanical and thermal safety assessment is carried out in Germany by competent authority BAM. In recent years BAM was involved in several licensing procedures of new spent fuel and HLW package designs, where the cask body was made of Ductile Cast Iron (DCI). According to IAEA regulations package designs have to fulfill requirements for specific conditions of transport. Type B(U) packages must withstand the defined accident conditions of transport. The temperature range from -40°C up to the operational temperature has to be considered. For the cask material DCI, it is necessary to determine the brittle fracture behavior. The German guideline BAM-GGR 007 defines requirements for the fracture mechanics of DCI. Due to complex structure of the cask body and the dynamic loading a fracture mechanical assessment in an analytical kind is not always possible. Experience of recent design approval procedures show that the application of numerical calculations are applicable to determine the fracture mechanical load in the cask body. At the first step a numerical analysis has to be done to identify the loading state at the whole cask body. Secondly an analysis of a detail of the cask body is made considering the displacement boundary conditions of the global model. An artificial flaw is considered in this detailed model to calculate the fracture mechanical loading state. The finite element mesh was strongly refined in the area of flaw. The size of the artificial flaw is characterized by the ultrasonic inspection used for the quality assurance of the package. The applicant developed additional analysis tools for calculation of stress intensity factor and/or J-Integral. The assessment approach by BAM led to the decision to develop own tools to the possibility for independent check of the results.
The paper describes the authority assessment approach for the DCI fracture mechanics analysis. The validation procedure incl. the development of own tools is explained. BAM developed a post-processor called JINFEM to determine the fracture mechanical loads. The regulatory 1 m puncture bar drop test is used to give an example of the assessment procedure.
Further miniaturization of electronic packaging calls for integration of magnetic functional components into LTCC modules. For integration of magnetic function into LTCC, low fired MnZn- and NiCuZn-ferrites which can be fully densified at the standard LTCC sintering temperature of 900°C were developed. To co-fire these ferrite tapes with dielectric tapes the sintering shrinkage and the coefficient of thermal expansion of ferrite and dielectric tapes must be matched. For each ferrite material a new LTCC dielectric material was designed. The embedded ferrite tapes into new LTCC dielectric tapes can be sufficiently densified during co-firing at 900°C without any cracking. Compared to separately sintered ferrites the permeability of embedded ferrite tapes is reduced. For embedded NiCuZn ferrites permeabilities between 230 and 570 (at 2 MHz) according to the thickness of the embedded ferrite layer were measured. For embedded MnZn ferrites a permeability of 300 was measured.
Manufacturing of CIGSe thin film solar modules involves typically one laser structuring step (P1) and two mechanical structuring steps (P2 and P3) for serial interconnection. In our approach, complete laser structuring is successfully demonstrated by application of short nanosecond laser pulses (<10 ns) with a single, visible wavelength of 532 nm. The P1 and the P3 trenches are scribed by induced and direct ablation, respectively. For the P2 scribe, the thermal input of the ns laser pulses is used to transform the CIGSe absorber layer locally into a highly conductive compound to provide proper electrical interconnection. These findings promise further simplification and flexibility to thin film solar cell production.
Structuring of thin-film photovoltaic modules requires basic knowledge of the laser – thin-film interaction in order to adapt the accessible laser parameters, like wavelength, power, repetition rate and scribing speed whilst taking into account the specific material properties of the layer. We have studied the nanosecond laserablation behavior of corresponding layers (i) of silicon based thin-film solar cells with a-Si/µc-Si tandem absorber type and (ii) of back contact and absorber layer of CIGSe solar cells. The respective ablation threshold fluences were determined as integrative parameters describing the specific laser – material interaction. For the threshold determination we used two different methods and developed a new analytical approach taking into account scribing through the glass substrate as it is preferred for most structuring processes. This was done by analyzing the thin film ablation results by means of optical microscopy, profilometry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Moreover, we determined the incubation coefficient of the regarded material layers which allows us to predict quantitatively the influence of the spot overlap on the scribing threshold.