A Study on Techniques to Detect Surface Stress Corrosion Cracking in Austenite Stainless Steel

To find out the effective testing techniques to detect Stress Corrosion Cracking in the in-service Austenite stainless steel pressure vessels and piping, testing experiments of Liquid Penetrant Testing, Eddy Current Array and Digital Radiography were studied to detect Stress Corrosion Cracking in 2 specimens and the effect of the surface curvature of the pipe on Stress Corrosion Cracking detectability was studied by the CIVA simulation. The results show that, Eddy Current Array has a higher ability to detect the surface-breaking and subsurface Stress Corrosion Cracking than PT, Digital Radiography can detect some buried Stress Corrosion Cracking but limited by the crack detection angle and the geometric unsharpness, and they are the good combination for the external testing of the austenite stainless steel pressure vessels and piping.