from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Managing instrumentation and control obsolescence, improving the safety, and extending the lifetime of older nuclear reactors (such as VVER-440) are the primary objectives of nuclear power plants in Central and Eastern Europe. Extending reactor life to 60 years and beyond will likely increase susceptibility and severity of known forms of degradation. Additionally, new mechanisms of materials degradation are also possible. Therefore, it is necessary to examine on a regular basis the structures, systems and components of the reactor facility using specific techniques such as those based on non-destructive testing to conduct special inspections with varied objectives. The main purpose of this paper is to present the advanced procedures for monitoring degradation processes under static and dynamic loading (simulation of operational loading of pressure equipment) using acoustic emission technique. It is one of the most powerful non-destructive methods for assessing active processes occurring in the loaded material. Experiments have been performed on specimens made of Cr–Ni–Mo–V nuclear ferritic steel (known as 15Ch2NMFA) at room temperature. The acoustic emission results showed a clear response to loaded specimens with and without a crack.
Keywords: acoustic emission, pressure equipment, pressure test, fatigue, crack© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.