Abstract
Austenitic stainless steel welded components are widely used in industrial applications. Due to the large grain size of these welds, ultrasonic testing of them is a difficult task. In this paper, the propagation of ultrasonic waves in austenitic stainless steel welds prepared by shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) and gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) processes is modeled by finite element method. The grain structure of welds prepared by these two processes are completely different. First, the exact grain structure of each weld is extracted by examining the weld grain structures on a welded specimen. The weld areas of the two welds are then divided into several domains and the grain orientation of each domain is extracted. The elasticity tensor of the orthotropic weld material is also measured. In meshing of the finite element model, the grain orientation in each domain is accounted for by rotating the elasticity tensor of the elements of that domain along the direction of grains. The propagation of waves in time-of-flight diffraction (TOFD) ultrasonic testing of the welds is then simulated by using this model. Actual TOFD tests are also conducted on the welded test specimen in which crack-like slots are implanted. The TOFD signals collected from welds are then compared with the results obtained from the finite element model. Very good agreement is observed between the simulated and measured results indicating that the proposed finite element model can accurately model the SMAW and GTAW austenitic welds.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Tomlinson, J.R., Wagg, A.R., and Whittle, M.J., Ultrasonic inspection of austenitic welds, Int. Atom. Energ. Agency (IAEA), 1980, paper no. IWGFR–35, pp. 82–95.
Harker, A., Ogilvy, J., and Temple, J., Modeling ultrasonic inspection of austenitic welds, J. Nondestr. Eval., 1990, vol. 9, nos. 2–3, pp. 155–165. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00566391
Edelmann, X., Ultrasonic examination of austenitic welds at reactor pressure vessels, Nucl. Eng. Des., 1991, vol. 129, no. 3, pp. 341–355. https://doi.org/10.1016/0029-5493(91)90143-6
Hudgell, R.J., Worrall, G.M., Ford, J., et al., Ultrasonic characterization and inspection of austenitic welds, Int. J. Pres. Ves. Pip., 1989, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 247–263. https://doi.org/10.1016/0308-0161(89)90088-4
Handbook on the Ultrasonic Examination of Austenitic Welds, Miami: The International Institute of Welding, 1986, pp. 5–18.
Liu, Q. and Wirdelius, H., A 2D model of ultrasonic wave propagation in an anisotropic weld, NDT & E Int., 2007, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 229–238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ndteint.2006.10.004
Seldis, T. and Pecorari, C., Scattering-induced attenuation of an ultrasonic beam in austenitic steel, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 2000, vol. 108, no. 2, pp. 580–587. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.429589
Schmitz, V., Kröning, M., and Chakhlov, S., Modelling of sound fields through austenitic welds, AIP Conf. Proc., 2000, vol. 509, no. 1, pp. 969–976. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1306149
Chassignole, B., Villard, D., Dubuget, M., et al., Characterization of austenitic stainless steel welds for ultrasonic NDT, AIP Conf. Proc., 2000, vol. 509, no. 1, pp. 1325–1332. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1307835
Halkjær, S., Sørensen, M.P., and Kristensen, W.D., The propagation of ultrasound in an austenitic weld, Ultrasonics, 2000, vol. 38, nos. 1–8, pp. 256–261. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0041-624X(99)00103-1
Moysan, J., Apfel, A., Corneloup, G., et al., Modelling the grain orientation of austenitic stainless steel multipass welds to improve ultrasonic assessment of structural integrity, Int. J. Pres. Ves. Pip., 2003, vol. 80, no. 2, pp. 77–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-0161(03)00024-3
Subbaratnam, R., Abraham, S.T., Menaka, M., et al., Time of flight diffraction testing of austenitic stainless steel weldments at elevated temperatures, Mater. Eval., 2008, vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 332–337.
Chassignole, B., Duwig, V., Ploix, M.A., et al., Modelling the attenuation in the ATHENA finite elements code for the ultrasonic testing of austenitic stainless steel welds, Ultrasonics, 2009, vol. 49, no. 8, pp. 653–658. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultras.2009.04.001
Chassignole, B., Dupond, O., Fouquet, T., et al., Application of modelling for enhanced ultrasonic inspection of stainless steel welds, Weld. World, 2011, vol. 55, no. 7, pp. 75–82. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03321310
Tabatabaeipour, S.M. and Honarvar, F., A comparative evaluation of ultrasonic testing of AISI 316Lwelds made by shielded metal arc welding and gas tungsten arc welding processes, J. Mater. Process. Tech., 2010, vol. 210, no. 8, pp. 1043–1050. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2010.02.013
Ploix, M.A., Guy, P., Chassignole, B., et al., Measurement of ultrasonic scattering attenuation in austenitic stainless steel welds: Realistic input data for NDT numerical modeling, Ultrasonics, 2014, vol. 54, no. 7, pp. 1729–1736. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultras.2014.04.005
Marsac, Q., Gueudré, C., Ploix, M.A., et al., Realistic model to predict the macrostructure of GTAW welds for the simulation of ultrasonic nondestructive testing, J. Nondestr. Eval., 2020, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-020-00724-y
Ginzel, E., Ultrasonic Time of Flight Diffraction: Fundamentals & Applications for Nondestructive Testing, Waterloo: Eclipse Scientific Products Inc., 2013, pp. 31–47.
Sinclair, A.N., Fortin, J., Honarvar, F., et al., Enhancement of ultrasonic images for sizing of defects by time-of-flight diffraction, NDT & E Int., 2010, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 258–264.
Shakibi, B., Honarvar, F., Moles, M.D., et al., Resolution enhancement of ultrasonic defect signals for crack sizing, NDT & E Int., 2012, vol. 52, pp. 37–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ndteint.2009.12.003
Habibpour-Ledari, A. and Honarvar, F., Three dimensional characterization of defects by ultrasonic time-of-flight diffraction (ToFD) technique, J. Nondestr. Eval., 2018, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-018-0465-5
Charlesworth, J.P. and Temple, J.A.G., Engineering Applications of Ultrasonic Time-of-Flight Diffraction, Philadelphia: Research Studies Press Ltd, 2002, pp. 15–49, 2nd ed.
Qin Liu, Wang, Y., Ye, B., et al., Recognition confidence of welding seam defects in TOFD images based on artificial intelligence, Autom. Control Comp. Sci., 2022, vol. 56, pp. 180–188. https://doi.org/10.3103/S0146411622020079
Sun, X., Lin, L., and Jin, S., Resolution enhancement in ultrasonic TOFD imaging by combining sparse deconvolution and synthetic aperture focusing technique (Sparse-SAFT), Chin. J. Mech. Eng., 2022, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s10033-022-00768-3
Shuohui Chen, Teng, X., Sang, X., et al., Automatic recognition of welding seam defects in TOFD images based on tensor flow, Autom. Control Comp. Sci., 2022, vol. 56, pp. 58–66. https://doi.org/10.3103/S0146411622010035
Jin, S.J., Zhang, B., Sun, X., et al., Reduction of layered dead zone in time-of-flight diffraction (TOFD) for pipeline with spectrum analysis method, J. Nondestr. Eval., 2021, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-021-00781-x
Bazulin, E.G., TOFD echo signal processing to achieve superresolution, Russ. J. Nondestr. Test., 2021, vol. 57, pp. 352–360. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1061830921050053
Bazulin, E.G., Vopilkin, A.K., and Tikhonov, D.S., Determining the coordinates of reflectors in a plane perpendicular to welded joint using echo signals measured by transducers in the TOFD scheme, Russ. J. Nondestr. Test., 2021, vol. 57, pp. 437–445. https://doi.org/10.1134/S106183092106005X
Aleshin, N.P., Mogil’ner, L.Yu., Krys’ko, N.V., et al., Studying applicability of TOFD technique to inspection of welded joints in polyethylene pipes, Russ. J. Nondestr. Test., 2020, vol. 56, pp. 775–783. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1061830920100022
Jin, S.J., Sun, X., Ma, T.T., et al., Quantitative detection of shallow subsurface defects by using mode-converted waves in Time-of-Flight diffraction technique, J. Nondestr. Eval., 2020, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-020-00676-3
Hosseini, S.H. and Honarvar, F., Numerical modeling of the propagation of ultrasonic waves in AISI316L welds made by SMAW and GTAW processes, J. Theor. Appl. Vib. Acoust., 2020, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 69–80. https://doi.org/10.22064/tava.2021.111405.1141
Pamnani, R., Vasudevan, M., Jayakumar, T., et al., Numerical simulation and experimental validation of arc welding of DMR–249A steel, Defence Tech., 2016, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 305–315. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dt.2016.01.012
German Society for Nondestructive Testing. Handbook on the Ultrasonic Examination of Austenitic Welds, Berlin: DVS Media, 2008, pp. 15–20.
Rose, J.L., Ultrasonic Waves in Solid Media, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 27–33.
Lai, M., Rubin, D., and Krempl, E., Introduction to Continuum Mechanics, Oxford: Elsevier, 2010, pp. 201–213, 4th ed.
Papadakis, E.P., Patton, T., Tsai, Y.M., et al., The elastic moduli of a thick composite as measured by ultrasonic bulk wave pulse velocity, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 1991, vol. 89, no. 6, pp. 2753–2757. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.400714
Adler, L., Cook, K.V., and Fitting, D.W., Ultrasonic Characterization of Austenitic Welds. Report, Oak Ridge: Oak Ridge National Lab., 1978.
Abaqus 6.14, in: Abaqus/CAE User’s Guide, Paris: Dassault Systems, 2014.
Lord, W., Ludwig, R., and You, Z., Developments in ultrasonic modeling with finite element analysis, J. Nondestr. Eval., 1990, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 129–143. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00566389
Ludwig, R. and Lord, W., Developments in the finite element modeling of ultrasonic NDT phenomena, Rev. Prog. Quant. Nondestr. Eval., 1986, pp. 73–81.
Shirmohammadi, F., Bahrami, S., Saadatpour, M., et al., Modeling wave propagation in moderately thick rectangular plates using the spectral element method, Appl. Math. Model., 2015, vol. 39, no. 12, pp. 3481–3495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apm.2014.11.044
Duan, J.X., Luo, L., Gao, X.R., et al., Hybrid ultrasonic TOFD imaging of weld flaws using wavelet transforms and image registration, J. Nondestr. Eval., 2018, vol. 37, p. 23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-018-0476-2
Yeh, F.W.T., Lukomski, T., Haag, J., et al., An alternative ultrasonic time-of-flight diffraction (TOFD) method, NDT & E Int., 2018, vol. 100, pp. 74–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ndteint.2018.08.008
Honarvar, F., Sheikhzadeh, H., Moles, M., et al., Improving the time-resolution and signal-to-noise ratio of ultrasonic NDE signals, Ultrasonics, 2004, vol. 41, no. 9, pp. 755–763. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultras.2003.09.004
Hajian, M. and Honarvar, F., Reflectivity estimation using an expectation maximization algorithm for ultrasonic testing of adhesive bonds, Mater. Eval., 2011, vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 208–219.
Mirahmadi, S.J. and Honarvar, F., Application of signal processing techniques to ultrasonic testing of plates by S0 Lamb wave mode, NDT & E Int., 2011, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 131–137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ndteint.2010.10.004
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Mr. E. Rahimi from AMA Industrial Co. for assistance in fabricating the austenitic weld specimen and molds.
Funding
No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Seyyed H Hosseini: conceptualization, methodology, validation, analysis, investigation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, visualization. Farhang Honarvar: conceptualization, methodology, validation, analysis, investigation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, visualization.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
DATA AVAILABILITY
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hosseini, S.H., Honarvar, F. A Numerical Model for Ultrasonic Time-of-Flight Diffraction (TOFD) Testing of Austenitic Welds. Russ J Nondestruct Test 59, 182–203 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S106183092360003X
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S106183092360003X