title: Detection and characterization of stainless steel SCC by the analysis of crack related acoustic emission.
abstract: In the paper the results of the acoustic emission (AE) based detection and characterization of stress-corrosion cracking (SCC) in stainless steel are presented. As supportive methods for AE interpretation, electrochemical noise, specimen elongation measurements, and digital imaging of the specimen surface were used. Based on the defined qualitative and quantitative time and power spectra characteristics of the AE bursts, a manual and an automatic procedure for the detection of crack related AE bursts were introduced. The results of the analysis of the crack related AE bursts indicate that the AE method is capable of detecting large scale cracks, where, apart from intergranular crack propagation, also some small ductile fractures occur. The sizes of the corresponding ductile fracture areas can be estimated based on a relative comparison of the energies of the detected AE bursts. It has also been shown that AE burst time and power spectra features can be successfully used for the automatic detection of SCC.
authors.affiliation: Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute, Dimiceva 12, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Jaka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kovač
authors.affiliation: Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute, Dimiceva 12, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Andraž
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Legat
authors.affiliation: Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute, Dimiceva 12, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Bojan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zajec
authors.affiliation: Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute, Dimiceva 12, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Tadeja
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kosec
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Askerceva 6, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. Electronic address: edvard.govekar@fs.uni-lj.si.
authors.forename: Edvard
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Govekar
keywords: Acoustic emission; Signal processing; Spectral analysis; Stress-corrosion cracking