Observation and Identification of Crack Growth Modes in Reactor Steels Using Acoustic Emission

摘要

This workshop was held to identify major technical issues in the quantitative correlation of acoustic emission with crack growth mode in reactor steels. The technological value of such a correlation is clear in terms of accepting acoustic emission as an on-line nondestructive probe of cracking in light-water reactor structural components and, as a consequence, in terms of increasing reactor availability and reliability. The value for materials science is clear as well in terms of demonstrating the potential of a new in-situ nondestructive probe for characterizing microfracture events and possibly local deformation phenomena during mechanical testing, a capability not available with existing probes. The desired output from this workshop was a set of recommendations for the development of acoustic emission monitoring; these require expertise of both the technological and scientific communities. The recommendations are given in the summary and Section 4, and potential benefits are summarized in Section 3 of this report. (ERA citation 10:012963)