NONDESTRUCTIVE/IN-FIELD CHARACTERIZATION OF TENSILE PROPERTIES AND RESIDUAL STRESS OF WELDED STRUCTURES USING ADVANCED INDENTATION TECHNIQUE

Structural integrity assessment is indispensable for preventing catastrophic failure of industrial structures/components/facilities. This diagnosis of operating components should be done periodically for safe maintenance and economical repair. However, conventional standard methods for mechanical properties have the problems of bulky specimen, destructive and complex procedure of specimen sampling. Especially, the mechanical properties at welded zone including weldment and heat affected zone could not be evaluated individually due to their size requirement problem. So, an advanced indentation technique has been developed as a potential method for non-destructive testing of in-field structures. This technique measures indentation load-depth curve during indentation and analyzes the mechanical properties related to deformation such as yield strength, tensile strength and work-hardening index. Also indentation technique can evaluate a residual stress based on the concept that indentation load-depth curves were shifted with the direction and the magnitude of residual stress applied to materials. In this study, we characterized the tensile properties and welding residual stress of various industrial facilities through the new techniques, and the results are introduced and discussed.