Development of ultrasonic methods for examining stainless steel welds. Interim progress report

Spurious ultrasonic (UT) signals obtained during the examination of austenitic stainless steel welds in LMFBR components have emphasized the need to develop more effective UT methods to supplement the examination processes presently employed during fabrication, and for use during subsequent in-service inspection of LMFBR plants. This interim report documents the first year's effort on a program that was designed to investigate this problem and develop viable solutions. Sixty-eight weld samples were acquired, cataloged, and subjected to a series of ultrasonic, radiographic, and metallographic examination procedures. It was determined that although spurious UT noise signals could usually be associated with major dendritic grain growth patterns, the existence and magnitude of some of the observed noise signals could not be explained simply on the basis of dendritic microstructure. The results obtained during application of a series of ultrasonic and radiographic characterization procedures are included, in addition to photomicrographs and photomicrographic montages taken in the vicinity of numerous sites which produced ultrasonic noise signals of various amplitudes. A concurrent investigation was conducted to evaluate the performance of conventional ultrasonic examination procedures. These results are compared with the laboratory investigation results, and a brief outline of future work planned under this program is presented. (auth