USING ACOUSTIC EMISSION TECHNOLOGY FOR DETECTING STRUCTURAL DEFECTS

Abstract eng:
An increasing demand for cost-effective inspections and maintenance is driving the industry to modern solutions, which will provide the necessary inspection results for the assessment of the condition of large scale structures with minimum disruption to operations and low cost. Acoustic Emission (AE) has been successfully applied for the structural integrity assessment of pressure vessels and storage tanks during both in-service and hydrostatic tests for a wide range of manufacturing materials. Extensive testing of such structures has led to the development of AE testing procedures, evaluation criteria and international standards. In addition to that, industry proven procedures, such as MONPAC & IPAC for pressure vessels, extended the codes’ pass-fail assessment to quantitative evaluation of fault severity and criticality and have provided the industry with a tool for 100% evaluation of the vessel, capable of giving early warning of developing defects, increasing, thus, the operational safety. The present work presents the use of Acoustic Emission as a global NDT method for the assessment of structural integrity of large scale structures with emphasis on the metallic vessels. Advantages and limitations are discussed and representative application examples are presented including in service testing of spheres, and hydrotest test of a process column.

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