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NEW NON-DESTRUCTIVE RESIDUAL STRESS MAPPING TECHNIQUE
23 February 2005 - CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory
| The need of designers, manufacturers and maintenance engineers for non-destructive techniques to assess areas of structural weakness and potential failure in critical engineering components is being met by the DARTS team using the synchrotron at Daresbury Laboratory. Synchrotron strain scanning has been developed into an advanced non-destructive engineering analysis tool using the high energy, high flux beams and large experimental area at the Daresbury synchrotron to characterise the strength and potential failure of structural components. Detailed two and three dimensional strain maps of entire engineering components are obtained faster, to greater depth and more accurately than possible by any other method. |
The need of designers, manufacturers and maintenance engineers for non-destructive techniques to assess areas of structural weakness and potential failure in critical engineering components is being met by the DARTS team using the synchrotron at Daresbury Laboratory. Synchrotron strain scanning has been developed into an advanced non-destructive engineering analysis tool using the high energy, high flux beams and large experimental area at the Daresbury synchrotron to characterise the strength and potential failure of structural components. Detailed two and three dimensional strain maps of entire engineering components are obtained faster, to greater depth and more accurately than possible by any other method. In structural engineering materials such as metals, alloys and ceramics, internal and external forces create strain fields which are responsible for the initiation of defects which can lead to a reduction in the lifespan of the component. Traditional methods of stress analysis require the test specimen to be cut, thereby introducing the potential for stresses to be either relieved or added to. Conventional laboratory X-ray diffraction methods do not penetrate the sample sufficiently and take a long time to collect sufficient data. The technique has been used to examine new friction stir welding methods and finishing processes such as shot peening. The discovery that component shape and dimensions exert a crucial influence on the residual stresses can be incorporated into designs that mitigate against mechanical failure.
http://www.darts.ac.uk
About: CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory
DARTS is a unique service offering solutions to materials characterisation problems that are unattainable in the conventional laboratory. This is possible because it makes use of the Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS). Advantages of using the SRS include: • The ability to study small or weakly diffracting samples. Improved resolution, enabling structures intractable in the home laboratory to be solved. • The ability to select the optimum wavelength for a particular application. • Additional specialised techniques only possible using synchrotron radiation can be exploited. The DARTS team's ability to access and combine a range of complementary techniques provides information to help manufacturers control processing conditions and modify manufacturing techniques to improve a wide range of products. Even the everyday crisp packet has benefited from DARTS leading edge technology. Applications can cover materials from agrochemicals, pigments, polypeptides, microporous materials, organometallics, catalyst materials, minerals and samples from processing plants.
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