Abstract
The ultrasonic inspection of the primary coolant piping of Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) is a major concern for the nuclear industry. Numerous studies have been undertaken over some years by EDF R&D in collaboration with the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) to improve the non-destructive testing (NDT) process for these applications and to help towards their qualification. More particularly, a great deal of work was carried out on the inspection of austenitic stainless steel welds. Indeed, the anisotropic, heterogeneous and coarse granular structures of these welds lead to important disturbances of the ultrasonic propagation: beam skewing and splitting, attenuation, backscattering and ghost echoes. This paper presents the methodology developed for modelling the ultrasonic inspection of austenitic welds, which is based on an accurate characterization of the material. Two numerical approaches are presented: a finite elements code, ATHENA, developed by EDF, and a semi-analytical code that is a part of the CIVA simulation platform developed by the CEA. These codes simulate the propagation of the ultrasonic beam in the weld and calculate the defect-beam interaction. Ultrasonic beam disturbances are illustrated from experimental and numerical results for different applications. In particular, the influence of variations in the weld structure on NDT performance is discussed. This comparison between experiment and modelling shows the modelling methodology to be valid.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Tomlinson J.R., Wagg J.R. and Whittle J.M.: Ultrasonic inspection of austenitic welds, British Journal of NDT, 1980, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 119–127.
Langenberg K.J., Hannemann R., Kaczorowski T., Marklein R., Koehler B., Schurig C. and Walte F.: Application of modeling techniques for ultrasonic austenitic weld inspection, NDT&E International, 2000, vol. 33, no. 7, pp. 465–480.
Halkjaer S., Sorensen M.P. and Kristensen W.D.: The propagation of ultrasound in a austenitic weld, Ultrasonics, 2000, vol. 38, no. 1–8, pp. 256–261.
Chassignole B., Villard D., Nguyen Van Chi G., Gengembre N. and Lhemery A.: Ultrasonic propagation in austenitic stainless steel welds — approximate model and numerical methods results and comparison with experiments, Proceedings of Rewiew of Progress in QNDE, July 1999, vol. 20A, Montreal, pp. 153–160.
Dupond O., Chassignole B., Doudet L. and Birac C.: Methodology for modelling ultrasonic inspection of an austenitic stainless steel weld, Proceedings of the 6th ICNDE, M. Bieth and J. Whittle, Eds. EUR 23356 EN, European Commission, Budapest, October 2007, pp. 240–247.
Chassignole B., Paris O. and Abittan E.: Ultrasonic examination of a CVCS weld, Proceedings of the 6th ICNDE, M. Bieth and J. Whittle, Eds. EUR 23356 EN, European Commission, Budapest, October 2007, pp. 764–772.
Kemnitz P., Richter U., Klüber H.: Measurements of the acoustic field on austenitic welds, Nuclear Engineering and Design, 1997, vol. 174, no. 3, pp. 259–272.
Engler O., Gottstein G.: A new approach in texture research: local orientation determination with EBSP, Steel Research, 1992, vol. 63, no. 9, pp. 413–418.
Apfel A., Moysan J., Corneloup G., Fouquet T. and Chassignole B.: Coupling an ultrasonic propagation code with a model of the heterogeneity of multipass welds to simulate ultrasonic testing, Ultrasonics, 2005, vol. 43, no. 6, pp. 447–456.
Becache E., Joly R and Tsogka C.: An analysis of new mixed finite elements for the approximation of wave propagation problems, SIAM Journal of Numerical Analysis, 2000, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 1053–1084.
Chassignole B., Duwig V., Ploix M-A., Guy R and El Guerjouma R.: Modelling the attenuation in the ATHENA finite elements code for the ultrasonic testing of austenitic welds, Ultrasonics, 2009, vol. 49, no. 8, pp. 653–658.
Lhémery A., Calmon P., Lecoeur-Taïbi I., Raillon R. and Paradis L.: Modelling tools for ultrasonic inspection of welds, NDT&E International, 2000, vol. 33, no. 7, pp. 499–513.
Mahaut S., Darmon A., Chatillon S., Jenson F. and Calmon P.: Recent advances and current trends of ultrasonic modelling in CIVA, Insight, 2009, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 78–81.
Ahmed S. and Thompson R.B.: Effect of preferred grain orientation and grain elongation on ultrasonic wave propagation in stainless steel, Review of Progress in Quantitative Non Destructive Evaluation, Proceedings of the 18th Annual Review, Brunswick, ME, July 28–Aug. 2, 1991 (A93-19582 06-38), vol. 11B, pp. 1999–2006.
Chassignole B., Villard D., Dubuget M., Baboux J.C. and El Guerjouma R.: Characterization of austenitic stainless steel welds for ultrasonic NDT, Proceedings of Rewiew of Progress in QNDE, Montreal, July 1999, vol. 20B, pp. 1325–1332.
Seld Is T. and Pecorari C.: Scattering-induced attenuation of an ultrasonic beam in austenitic steel, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2000, vol. 108, no. 2, pp. 580–587.
Diaz J., Schumm A., Duwig V., Fouquet T. and Chassignole B.: Structural noise in modelisation, Proceedings of 9th European Conference on NDT, Berlin, September 2006.
Chassignole B., Dupond O., Doudet L., Duwig V. and Etchegaray N.: Ultrasonic examination of an austenitic weld: illustration of the disturbances of the ultrasonic beam, Proceedings of Review of Progress in QNDE, Chicago, July 2009, vol. 28B, pp. 1886–1893.
Chassignole B., Dupond O. and Doudet L.: Ultrasonic and metallurgical examination on an alloy 182 welding mold, Proceedings of the 7th ICNDE, Yokohama, May 2009.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chassignole, B., Dupond, O., Fouquet, T. et al. Application of Modelling for Enhanced Ultrasonic Inspection of stainless steel welds. Weld World 55, 75–82 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03321310
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03321310