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U.S. Department of Energy
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Inspection of steel pressure vessels by acoustic emission

Conference ·
OSTI ID:4397748

From 2nd international congress for pressure vessel and piping technology; San Antonio, Texas, USA (1 Oct 1973). See CONF731003-P2. It is of primary innportance to the safety of industrial plants to be able to monitor or inspect steel pressure vessels to determine changes which occur in existing defects and to detect the presence of new defects. The application of the acoustic emission method to such monitoring is discussed in terms of: means for detecting stress waves, i.e., acoustic emission; quantitative evaluation of measured emissions; data on the relation between fracture mechanisms and acoustic emission in steel; rupture mechanisms on test pressure vessels; the performance of acoustic emission testing during hydraulic tests on industrial pressure vessels; and recent laboratory research developments. It is concluded that acoustic emission testing is advantageous for monitoring pressure vessel defects because it is a global control method and can be applied to pressurized equipment, it is an efficient monitoring method easy to adapt to normal plant operating conditions, and it detects only defects that are evoluting and consequently hazardous. (LC L)

Research Organization:
CEN de Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
NSA Number:
NSA-29-000328
OSTI ID:
4397748
Country of Publication:
Country unknown/Code not available
Language:
English