Acoustic emission during crack propagation in nuclear rpv steels

Abstract

The main goal of this work is to determine the parameters of the AE signals registered with a PC-controlled automated AE-system SCOP-8 during initiation and propagation stages of fracture in three differently aged reactor RPV steels. Two types of steel, namely 15Kh2МFA and 15Kh2МFA-A were in-vestigated. The following parameters of the acoustic emission signal were evaluated for analysis: ampli-tude, rise time, spectral characteristics, wavelet coefficients etc. The initial stages of crack growth are characterized with the acoustic emission signals of moderate amplitudes and short duration. With expan-sion of the crack the flow of acoustic data contains both low-amplitude and high-amplitude signals. The collected data could be used for the quantitative evaluation of the crack growth and thus transferred to the design of the acoustic emission system for structural health monitoring of nuclear RPVs.