The characterisation of creep damage using non-destructive Barkhausen noise detection techniques

Abstract

Industry today sees an ever-increasing demand for power and energy. Due to the environmental, time and financial constraints of building new power generation and petrochemical processing facilities it has become feasible to run existing plant and equipment beyond their original design lives. Considering this and the demand to achieve greater production targets there is an increased requirement for plant and equipment inspection. The causes, identification and consequences of creep damage on equipment within the power and energy industries are examined. The Electricity Supply Boards (ESBs) current approach to Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) of creep damage, its advantages and disadvantages are presented. This project concentrates on using Barkhausen noise techniques for the NDE of creep damage in Cr-Mo-V steels, as used in the manufacture of power generation and chemical processing plant and equipment. The two main Barkhausen noise detection methodologies, Magneto-Acoustic Emission (MAE) and Magnetic Barkhausen Noise (MBN), and how they can be applied to creep damage detection will be discussed. Barkhausen noise techniques will be shown to offer an alternative NDE solution.