Параметры акустической неоднородности для неразрушающей оценки влияния технологии изготовления и эксплуатационной поврежденности на структуру металла

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a non-destructive acoustic method for assessing microstructural alterations produced in metals as a result of processing and exploitation damage. The method is based on measuring ratios of longitudinal and shear ultrasound waves velocities with subsequent normalization of these ratios to their counterparts corresponding to a “baseline state” of the metal. The choice of the baseline state depends of the particular problem and corresponds to either the pre-exploitation metal state for the object to be monitored, or the state of reference samples, for which the strength characteristics fall into acceptable range according to the results of conventional strength-evaluation methods. For the introduced Microstructure-Sensitive Acoustic parameters (MSA-parameters) characterizing alterations in the metal microstructure, we discuss the reasons of the difference between the baseline and current states of the metal in terms of the total values of the normal and tangential compliances imparted to the metal due to the appearance of microstructural heterogeneities. The efficiency of utilization of the proposed acoustic diagnostic parameters is demonstrated using experimental data for two types of metal samples with essentially different microstructure (isotropic and anisotropic heterogeneity). Measurements of the proposed microstructure-sensitive acoustic parameters can be used in a variety of applications: (i) non-destructive quality control of manufacturing technologies in metallurgy and mechanical engineering (ii) evaluation of damage accumulation during exploitation manufactured constructions/samples; (iii) evaluation of mechanical properties, fracture resistance and other physical parameters of metals.