An NDT guided wave technique for the identification of corrosion defects at support locations

Abstract Due to the large number of pipe supports over a piping run, a rapid reliable NDT system is needed to identify hidden corrosion defects at a pipe-support interface. To accomplish this, a system using Periodic Permanent Magnet (PPM) Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducers (EMAT׳s) to generate dispersive SH1 guided waves is implemented. For this study, both the effect of the support contact and a corrosion type defect are evaluated independently through finite element models and experiments utilizing a flat plate approximation. It was found that utilizing the SH1 plate wave near the inflection point or ‘knee’ of the dispersion curve yields a high sensitivity to gradual wall loss defects while experiencing a minimal effect from the support contact.

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