Project Code: 36079
Start date and planned duration: August 2024, 16 months
Objective
- Develop a positional paper in the form of a TWI Members report which offers guidance and recommendations on suitable ultrasonic inspection techniques and essential parameters for inspection of coarse grained materials.
- Compare the relative merits and shortfalls of PAUT, FMC/TFM and PWI ultrasonic inspection techniques for inspection of coarse grained materials.
- Produce an inspection procedure and scan plans to enable a repeatable and documented approach to inspection.
Project Outline
The project seeks to publish a positional paper in the form of a TWI Members Report on the ultrasonic inspection of coarse grained metallic components containing manufacturing or in-service defects applicable to the nuclear or fusion power generation sectors.
Work shall include investigation of the main ultrasonic techniques available from the major equipment suppliers and underpinned by code/standards, including PAUT, FMC/TFM, PWI, with the aim to establish the relative merits and shortfalls of each technique.
Emphasis of the study will initially focus on documentation of the expected capability of techniques based on theoretical and physical reasoning. Simulation and experimental evidence shall then be gathered to prove these physical principles with conclusions drawn thereafter.
A TWI Members Report shall be available to offer useful guidance on the techniques and essential parameters for ultrasonic inspection of coarse grained materials. The publication shall also act as a strong and viable reference to strengthen validation/qualification dossiers used to substantiate ultrasonic inspection procedures for use on high integrity components. Some of the evidence may be generic in nature but, where possible, the evidence will be framed in a way that could subsequently be used to support a Technical Justification or Capability Statement, eg according to the ENIQ Methodology (NUGENIA, 2019).
Industry Sectors
- Power, Nuclear
- Oil & Gas
Benefits to Industry
- The use of phased array ultrasonic testing (PAUT) for volumetric inspection of industrial components is now commonplace across a wide range of industry sectors. In more recent years advanced ultrasonic array techniques such as phase coherent imaging (PCI), plane wave imaging (PWI) and full matrix capture / total focussing method (FMC/TFM) have also reached industrial acceptance and are being more widely applied.
- With a number of code compliant ultrasonic array techniques now available to choose from industry is seeking clarity on inspection capability, in particular for more challenging inspection scenarios such as inspection of coarse grained alloys where careful selection of parameters is required to achieve an acceptable inspection reliability.
- Within the nuclear sector it has been emphasised that the methodology for demonstrating the capability for high reliability inspection should be built upon physical reasoning, underpinned by simulation and/or experimental evidence, rather than on experimental evidence alone.
- The fusion sector faces a number of especially challenging inspection scenarios where there is currently little, if any, experimental evidence that is directly relevant. Across a number of technologies, it is difficult to conduct trials that are representative of the conditions that will pertain to fusion plant during production and/or operation. In general, therefore, the fusion sector is keen to replace and/or supplement practical trials with physical reasoning and simulation. The current project will provide guidance on how, and to what extent, this can be done in the particular case of advanced ultrasonic techniques.