Over the years British Energy, in collaboration with British Nuclear Group, has developed an extensive suite of computer codes for modelling the ultrasonic inspection of ferritic steel components. The models predict the echo amplitude, relative to a specified threshold level, as a probe scans over a component containing a hypothetical smooth or rough planar defect. The models are used to help i...

Ultrasonic methods can be used to monitor crack propagation, weld failure, or section loss at critical locations in steel structures. However, ultrasonic inspection requires a skilled technician, and most commonly the signal obtained at the time of any inspection is not preserved for later use. A preferred technology would use a MEMS device permanently installed at a critical location, polled r...

This paper investigates the development of weld zone in Resistance Spot Welding (RSW) which focuses on weld nugget and Heat Affected Zone (HAZ). The effects of four factors namely weld current, weld time, electrode force and hold time were studied using a general 2 factorial design augmented by five centre points. The results of the analysis showed that all selected factors except hold time exh...

Several developments in the past have greatly helped to enhance ultrasonic detection and sizing. An important step forward was the introduction of Time of Flight Diffraction (ToFD), making sizing considerably less dependent of defect orientation. Optimized pulse-echo techniques, advances in transducer technology and software support combined with ToFD now enable the relatively high reliability ...

In this Part II, a thorough investigation of the melting of the electrode; the droplet formation, detachment, transfer and impingement onto the workpiece, and the weld-pool formation and dynamics was conducted. The transient melt-flow velocity and temperature distributions in the droplet and in the weld pool were calculated. The resulting crater in the weld pool and the weld-pool oscillation du...

Resistance spot welding process is one of the very useful and widely utilized joining processes in automobile industry due to its high working speed, high productivity, flexibility and economical cost operation. In this paper various optimization techniques like Taguchi method, Artificial neural network (ANN), Genetic algorithm (GA) etc. and their applications are discussed to get the optimum w...

Automated in-process Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) systems are rapidly gaining traction within the manufacturing industry as they reduce time and costs. When considering calibration verification of such systems, creating defects known geometry nature during deposition a weld can: (I) help examine capability automated system to detect characterise defects, (II) be used form database signals asso...

offshore pipelines are an effective tool for transportation of oil and gas which are usually assembled by the use of girth welds. since flaws may naturally exist at such welds, fracture assessment of girth welded offshore pipelines is substantial. current fracture assessment procedures like bs 7910 consider identical material properties for the weld and the base metals. however the strength dif...