A Practical Application of Ultrasonic Thermal Stress Monitoring in Continuous Welded Rails

A methodology designed to monitor thermally induced loads on continuous welded rails (CWR) is presented. The technique is based on the use of sub-surface longitudinal ultrasonic waves (l.c.r. waves) and, by means of a daily data elaboration, allows to obtain the value of the neutral temperature of the rail as a function of time. From such information an estimation of longitudinal stresses, to be used as a reference, can be derived. The methodology here presented has undergone a 2 years testing period, through the instrumentation of about 3 km of railway track. All acquired data have been remotely processed in a single control station.     

An ultrasonic method for measuring stresses in engineering materials

A ‘multiparameter’ method for indirect evaluation of intrinsic anisotropy values for prestressed engineering materials is discussed. The proposed method is based on simultaneous measurement of both the velocity of elastic waves and the parameters, characterizing the frequency dispersion and/or attenuation. Preliminary experimental demonstrations of the feasibility of such methods for common engineering materials are presented.     

A device for measuring the velocity of ultrasonic waves: An application to stress analysis

In this paper we present a device for the practical application of an ultrasonic critical-angle refractometry (UCRfr) technique. UCRfr is a technique for measuring the velocity of longitudinal, shear and Rayleight waves, developed to improve the traditional ultrasonic methods for measuring the stress level in materials by means of acousto-elasticity. The technique consists of relating the variations in wave propagation velocity to variations in the angle of refraction at the interface with a second medium. Variations in the angle of refraction are determined on the basis of delay in receiving of the same wave at two different points. The study deals with the measurements of velocity changes of longitudinal wave due to uniaxial stress. In the present work the effects of stress on aluminum and steel specimens have been studied. Experimentation has show the potential of the technique for stress measurement; on the other hand, when the applied stress is known, it allows the measurement of the acoustoelastic constants of longitudinal waves. As regards measuring variations in velocity induced by stress, using this method it is possible, with a suitable choice of the material the device is made of, to isolate the effects of stress on velocity from the possible effects of temperature.     

航空透明件表面波声弹效应

表面波作为超声波的一种特殊形式,由于其传播特性,使得通过改变频率检测距物体表面不同深度处的;初邕应力成为可能,因此,各种产表面波声弹理论与实验技术的研究不断受到重视。本文从弹性波和有限变形理论出发,推导了表面波在有初始应力的各同性弹性体中传播时,物体表面应力与超声波传播速度之间的一般关系。对作为收音机坐舱的航空透年ＹＢ－３有机玻璃试件进行了声弹性实验。同时还给出了由实验数据回归的三次多项式声弹公式     

Guided ultrasonic waves for non-destructive monitoring of the stress levels in prestressed steel strands

The safety of prestressed civil structures such as bridges, dams, nuclear power plants, etc. directly involves the security of both environment and users. Health monitoring of the tensioning components, such as strands, tendons, bars, anchorage bolts, etc. is an important research topic and a challenging task bringing together the non-destructive evaluation (NDE) and civil engineering communities. This paper deals with a guided ultrasonic wave procedure for monitoring the stress levels in seven-wire steel strands (15.7 mm in diameter). The mechanical and geometrical characteristics of the prestressed strands were taken into account for optimizing the measurement configuration and then the choice of the guided ultrasonic mode at a suitable frequency. Simplified acoustoelastic formulations were derived from the acoustoelasticity theory according to either calibration test or in situ measurement. The results from acoustoelastic measurements on the seven-wire steel strands are presented and discussed in the case of calibration tests and industrially prestressed strands. They show the potential and the suitability of the proposed guided wave method for evaluating the stress levels in the tested seven-wire steel strands.     

Acoustoelastic effects on mode waves in a fluid-filled pressurized borehole in triaxially stressed formations

Based on the nonlinear theory of acoustoelasticity, considering the triaxial terrestrial stress, the fluid static pressure in the borehole and the fluid nonlinear effect jointly, the dispersion curves of the monopole Stoneley wave and dipole flexural wave propagating along the borehole axis in a homogeneous isotropic formation are investigated by using the perturbation method. The relation of the sensitivity coefficient and the velocity-stress coefficient to frequency are also analyzed. The results show that variations of the phase velocity dispersion curve are mainly affected by three sensitivity coefficients related to third-order elastic constant. The borehole stress concentration causes a split of the flexural waves and an intersection of the dispersion curves of the flexural waves polarized in directions parallel and normal to the uniaxial horizontal stress direction. The stress-induced formation anisotropy is only dependent on the horizontal deviatoric terrestrial stress and independent of the horizontal mean terrestrial stress, the superimposed stress and the fluid static pressure. The horizontal terrestrial stress ratio ranging from 0 to 1 reduces the stress-induced formation anisotropy. This makes the intersection of flexural wave dispersion curves not distinguishable. The effect of the fluid nonlinearity on the dispersion curve of the mode wave is small and can be ignored.The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10272004) and The Special Science Foundation of the Doctoral Discipline of the Ministry of Education of China(20050001016) The English text was polished by Keren Wang.     

螺栓拉应力超声无损检测方法

本文依据声弹性原理中超声波传播速度与应力之间的对应关系,利用横波与纵波联合测量的办法,给出栓体长度未知的紧固螺栓轴向应力测量办法。针对螺栓在低载荷与高载荷不同情况下的栓体轴向应力测量系数不同的状况,分类进行了讨论,并给出对应载荷条件下应力测量系数的计算办法。文章讨论了A2-70奥氏体不锈钢与强度等级4.8低碳钢两种不从材质螺栓的轴向应力测量结果,实际测量与理论测量平均误差小于2.9367%,提高了横纵波轴向应力测量的精度。     

Effect of uniaxial stress on the propagation of higher-order Lamb wave modes

On the basis of the non-linear theory of elasticity and the invariant based formulation developed by Ogden, we analyse the effect of homogeneous stress on the propagation of Lamb waves. Using the theory of incremental deformations superimposed on large deformations, we derive the equations governing the propagation of small amplitude waves in a pre-stressed plate. By enforcing traction-free boundary conditions at the surfaces of the plate, we further obtain the characteristic equations for symmetric and anti-symmetric Lamb wave modes and investigate the effect of stress on the phase velocity, i.e. the acoustoelastic effect. A comparison with experimental data exhibits a better correlation than previously published results. The outcomes of this study can be utilised in the development of new techniques for the measurement of applied stresses based on the acoustoelastic effect. In particular, a strong sensitivity of the phase velocity to the applied stress near the cut-off frequencies of higher-order Lamb wave modes is a very promising option, which seems to have been overlooked in previous studies.     

Bolt axial stress measurement based on a mode-converted ultrasound method using an electromagnetic acoustic transducer

A method is proposed to measure the stress on a tightened bolt using an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT). A shear wave is generated by the EMAT, and a longitudinal wave is obtained from the reflection of the shear wave due to the mode conversion. The ray paths of the longitudinal and the shear wave are analyzed, and the relationship between the bolt axial stress and the ratio of time of flight between two mode waves is then formulated. Based on the above outcomes, an EMAT is developed to measure the bolt axial stress without loosening the bolt, which is required in the conventional EMAT test method. The experimental results from the measurement of the bolt tension show that the shear and the mode-converted longitudinal waves can be received successfully, and the ratio of the times of flight of the shear and the mode-converted longitudinal waves is linearly proportional to the bolt axial tension. The non-contact characteristic of EMAT eliminates the effect of the couplant and also makes the measurement more convenient than the measurement performed using the piezoelectric transducer. This method provides a promising way to measure the stress on tightened bolts.     

Monitoring near-surface depth profile of residual stress in weakly anisotropic media by Rayleigh-wave dispersion

Herein we study the inverse problem on inferring depth profile of near-surface residual stress in a weakly anisotropic medium by boundary measurement of Rayleigh-wave dispersion if all other relevant material parameters of the elastic medium are known. Our solution of this inverse problem is based on a recently developed algorithm by which each term of a high-frequency asymptotic formula for dispersion relations can be computed for Rayleigh waves that propagate in various directions along the free surface of a vertically-inhomogeneous, prestressed, and weakly anisotropic half-space. As a prime example of possible applications we focus on a thick-plate sample of AA 7075-T651 aluminum alloy, which has one face treated by low plasticity burnishing (LPB) that induced a depth-dependent prestress at and immediately beneath the treated surface. We model the sample as a prestressed, weakly-textured orthorhombic aggregate of cubic crystallites and assume that by nondestructive and/or destructive measurements we have ascertained everything about the sample, including the LPB-induced prestress, before it is put into service. Under the supposition that the prestress be partially relaxed but other material parameters remain unchanged after the sample undergoes a period of service, we examine the possibility of inferring the depth profile of the partially relaxed stress by boundary measurement of Rayleigh-wave dispersion.