TWI Industrial Member Report Summary 800/2004
S M Williams and R Sanderson
Background
The work described in this report is part of a European collaborative project under the GROWTH initiative of the EC 5th framework. The project aims to investigate the use of the piezoelectric effect to induce and detect vibration in a structure for the purposes of detecting corrosion or some other structural change from the characteristics of the vibration. For this reason it is known as PIEZODIAGNOSTICS (PD). There are nine partner companies from the UK, France, Poland and Spain. The lead organisation is CEGELEC CNDT of France.
The goal of the project is to develop a long-range condition monitoring system applicable to a wide range of large industrial structures that suffer structural damage, particularly corrosion. The intention is to detect indications of damage in multiple locations over longer distances than currently achievable and to gain some information about the type of damage that may be present. Commercial systems already exist for long-range inspection of pipework, but identification generally involves the interpretation of an A-scan display limiting the information gained to size and location.
This report begins by describing a survey conducted to determine the types of large industrial structures for which the demand for long-range monitoring is greatest. This is followed by a description of the experiments on a storage tank, which was modelled computationally. Finally there is a description of the preparation of a real model tank and the planned experiments under laboratory conditions.
Objectives
- To determine by survey the industrial structures for which long-range monitoring is most needed
- To investigate by experimentation and numerical simulation suitable methods of long-range monitoring applicable to tanks
- To identify a suitable design for a model laboratory tank and complete its fabrication