Structural integrity and remnant life evaluation of pressure equipment from acoustic emission monitoring

It is now in excess of 30 years since modern acoustic emission (AE) techniq ues have been employed in industry. In that period, great advances have bee n made in both AE instrumentation development and applications including ba sic functions such as defect/leak/source detection and location, and some s ource identification. The industrial community which, in many countries, has been permitted to op erate under Self-Regulation Criteria, in some instances has demonstrated a tendency to use economic and convenience constraints to determine their ope rating scenarios. The desire to make manufacturing plants and structures mo re productive has resulted in them being operated under conditions which ex ceed those envisaged during the initial design. While these plants and stru ctures still operate efficiently and safely, the real structural integrity and remnant life evaluation is unknown. AE techniques have been used in a variety of applications in industrial pla nt, and the techniques described in this paper can provide realtime defect location; identify processes and procedures that are damaging pressurised e quipment; provide a structural integrity evaluation and, after a number of tests and analysis operations provide an estimate of remnant life of the st ructure monitored. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.