Current status of acoustic emission testing of pressure vessels abroad

At present, acoustic emission testing of pressure vessels is widely used in industrially developed countries such as the United States, the European Union and Japan. In the 1980s, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Japanese Nondestructive Testing Society (NDIS), the French and European Acoustic Emission Working Group (EWGAE), etc., successively proposed relevant acoustic emission testing standards and specifications, including terminology, detector performance testing and testing methods. Among them, the number of American ASTM standards and ASME specifications is large, relatively complete, and detailed. Table 1 is a catalog of some foreign standards and specifications for acoustic emission testing of pressure vessels.
In terms of testing personnel certification, the American Society for Nondestructive Testing has included acoustic emission technology in the SNT2TC21A nondestructive testing personnel identification and approval rules in the 1980s, and has carried out a large number of training and assessment work for acoustic emission level I, II and III testers. In terms of testing applications, there are many testing and inspection companies in the United States, the European Union and Australia that are engaged in acoustic emission testing of pressure vessels. It is reported that by the early 1990s, the American MANSANTO Chemical Industry Company had successfully inspected thousands of large pressure vessels using acoustic emission technology [7-9], many of which were conducted during operation. This work has also been widely used in countries such as Japan, the European Union and Australia, and there have been reports of success [10-13]. Many articles have reported that acoustic emission technology can be used to detect welding defects such as cracks, lack of fusion, lack of penetration, slag inclusions and pores in pressure vessel inspections. However, the discovery of these defects was confirmed after the acoustic emission test, and then the conventional non-destructive testing methods such as magnetic powder, penetration, ultrasonic or radiographic testing were used to re-test the designated parts of the acoustic emission source.
Table 1 Foreign acoustic emission testing standards and specifications