Manual Phased Array Ultrasonic Technique for Pipe Weld Inspection in Nuclear Power Plants

摘要

The Electric Power Research Institute (henceforth EPRI[1]) has the charter to help insure member utilities that their plants are run safely and efficiently. Member utilities share the costs of developing the techniques and technologies to achieve this goal by funding EPRI for very specific technical areas; and one of these areas is nondestructive testing (NDT). In the past, EPRI was limited to United States based utilities. In the past decade, EPRI influence has spread to Asia and Europe, and the concerns and issues are raised from all parts of the world. The industry is acutely aware that there are manpower shortages for performing NDT tests and at the same time more tests with greater reliability are required. One answer to this difficult situation is for EPRI to validate test methods, NDT equipment, and NDT technicians to specific tasks within the plant. When technicians with a proven skill set perform specific tests in the plant, it can be assumed that the quality of the test results from site to site within a plant will be uniform, and that the Probability of Detection (POD) of the defects of interest will be as high as reasonably achievable. Uniformity can lead to a monopoly on who and how tests are performed, a situation that is not in the best interests of the member utilities. The Performance Demonstration Initiative addresses all these issues by: 1. Insuring qualified technicians are performing critical tasks, 2. Insuring the methods and systems used to perform tests reliably reveal the defects of interest, and 3. NDT service providers, member utilities and equipment vendors all can develop and qualify new techniques for a particular inspection question In this paper, one such effort to qualify a new inspection procedure will be discussed. The candidate technique was developed by an NDT systems vendor, General Electric Sensing and Inspection Technologies (GE S&IT), and is made available to any customer purchasing the equipment needed to perform the test.