Thermally Activated Crack Growth and Fracture Toughness Evaluation of Pipeline Steels Using Acoustic Emission

Abstract

The article presents an approach to assessing the fracture toughness of structural alloys based on thermally activated crack growth and recording acoustic emission signals. The kinetic and structural features of the stable growth of the initiated crack are estimated using a multilevel acoustic emission model based on the time dependence of the logarithm of the cumulative acoustic emission count. The article provides an evaluation of the stable kinetic constants included in the equation of the thermal fluctuation steps of a crack according to literature sources and using the acoustic emission method. It is shown that parameters such as activation energy, activation area before the crack tip, and the rate of non-activation crack growth are stable and show a satisfactory correspondence between the reference literature and real experiments. The approach does not require a set of laboratory experiments to determine the empirical constants of traditional crack growth rate equations, and it also differs in that it takes into account the unique features of the destruction of a particular specimen or technological equipment and allows for a non-destructive assessment of fracture toughness. The values obtained are conservative. The concentration criterion of destruction requires further investigation.