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Up to now there is no sufficient technique to detect transverse cracks in austenitic and dissimilar welds which recently are of increasing interest in the integrity surveillance of nuclear power plants as well as in quality control of longitudinally welded pipes. Weld inspection by interpretation of single A-scans will lead to erroneous results due to effects caused by anisotropy and in worst case might leave flaws undetected. Therefore, imaging techniques such as the synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) should be used. If the SAFT algorithm is applied on data taken from austenitic welds, the inhomogeneous, anisotropic structure of these welds has to be taken into account in order to properly attribute amplitudes measured in A-scans to the corresponding coordinates in the region of interest. While this has been investigated in the past, all attempts so far were limited to the imaging of longitudinal cracks which requires a less complicated setup than the imaging of transverse cracks. In this paper we give an outline of our attempts to reconstruct images of transverse cracks in different welds. For this purpose a SAFT program based on ray tracing and a layered structure weld model derived from an empirical model of grain orientations in welds are used. The results of the image reconstruction on experimental data are shown and compared to images obtained by assuming an isotropic homogeneous model. Root reflection and crack tip echo are clearly visible which allows an estimation of size and position of the crack with good accuracy.
Ultrasonic examination of anisotropic inhomogeneous austenitic welds is challenging, because of the columnar grain structure of the weld leads to beam skewing and splitting. Modeling tools play an important role in understanding the ultrasound field propagation and optimization of experimental parameters during the ultrasonic testing of austenitic welds as well as the interpretation of the test results. In this contribution, an efficient theoretical model based on the ray tracing concepts is developed to calculate the ultrasonic fields in inhomogeneous austenitic welds quantitatively. The developed model determines the ultrasound fields by taking into account the directivity of the ray source, the inhomogenity of the weld as well as ray transmission coefficients. Directivity of the ray source in columnar grained austenitic materials (including layback orientation) is obtained in three dimensions based on Lamb's reciprocity theorem. Ray energy reflection and transmission coefficients at an interface between two general columnar grained austenitic materials are calculated in three dimensions. The ray tracing model predictions on inhomogeneous austenitic weld material are compared against those from CIVA, a commercial non-destructive modeling and simulation tool. The ultrasonic modeling tools in CIVA are based on semi-analytical solutions. For beam propagation simulation, a so-called 'pencil method' is used, which involves modeling the probe as a set of individual source points, each radiating 'a bundle' of diverging rays into the medium and integrating those elementary contributions. Inhomogenity in the weld region is approximated by mapping the grain orientations on weld macrograph. Simulation results for ultrasonic field profiles for an austenitic weld are shown to be in good agreement with the corresponding experimental results.
The inspection of austenitic and dissimilar welds using ultrasound demands for sophisticated testing techniques. The application of reconstruction methods like the Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (SAFT) on the measurement results provides an appropriate approach for defect characterization and sizing. Nevertheless, the reconstruction algorithm has to consider the aniso-tropic wave propagation inside the inhomogeneous weld material. In recent years the detection of transverse cracks has become increasingly important for ensuring the structural integrity of pipes in the primary circuit of nuclear power plants or longitudinally welded, cladded pipes. However, relia-ble inspection techniques are hardly available. In this particular case, it is expected that the compar-atively long propagation path of the ultrasonic wave field inside the inhomogeneous weld material enhances the effect of anisotropy and influences the accuracy and the signal-to-noise-ratio of the reconstruction result. In this contribution we suggest an advanced ultrasonic testing technique for detecting and sizing of transversal cracks in austenitic and dissimilar welds. The method applies a SAFT reconstruction algorithm considering the anisotropy and the inhomogeneity. A V-arrangement of the transducers in pitch-catch technique is chosen to avoid a direct coupling on the weld face. The reconstruction algo-rithm is based on an extended 3-dimensional weld model and uses a ray-tracing approach for de-termining the wave propagation paths. Along with the reconstruction algorithm the transducer set-up and experimental results of different specimens with artificial transverse flaws are presented. The availability of the proposed method for crack sizing is assessed in comparison to conventional testing techniques.