Int. J. Pres. Ves.

& Piping 22 (1986) 225-232

Monitoring of Intergranular Stress Corrosion Cracks

in Pipes with Weld Overlays

G. J. G r u b e r

Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas 78284, USA

(Received: 24 July, 1985)

ABSTRACT

The Multipulse-Observation Sizing Technique ( M O S T ) , developed

especially for use with the multibeam SLIC-40 transducer module, is
described in relation to intergranular stress corrosion cracking ( IGSCC)
in boiling water reactor piping systems. This technique and transducer
combination was developed to enable a regulatory agency or utility to
make proper acceptance or rejection decisions regarding cracked reactor
pipes with or without weld overlays. The SLIC-40 system makes
simultaneous use of Shear and Longitudinal waves to Inspect materials
for Cracks. The principles of the M O S T and SLIC-40 combination are
presented along with through-wall dimension (depth) estimates obtained
jbr cracks in pipes removed from the Nine Mile Point and Hatch 2plants.
Crack depth estimates were confirmed by sectioning the pipe specimens at
locations near the places of ultrasonic measurements.

INTRODUCTION

Ever since the discovery of extensive intergranular stress corrosion

cracking (IGSCC) at the Nine Mile Point power plant in June 1982,
detection and sizing of IGSCC in stainless steel boiling water reactor
(BWR) piping have been the subject of an all-out effort by the nuclear
power industry. The industry has been motivated because knowledge of
225
Int. J. Pres. Ves. & Piping 0308-0161/86/$03.50 ~ ElsevierApplied SciencePublishers
Ltd, England, 1986. Printed in Great Britain
226 G . J . Gruber

the extent of cracking is essential to make decisions on whether to repair

or replace a pipe and to make predictions of the residual life. Plant
experience with IGSCC now includes crack detection, crack sizing, pipe
replacement, pipe repair, and crack growth monitoring (surveillance).
However, the selection of the most appropriate life-extension technique
continues as a problem because of the inaccuracy of ultrasonic crack
depth estimates obtained by conventional techniques.
Because of the large uncertainty in crack depth estimation by the
amplitude drop technique, 1 a great deal of conservatism has been applied
in the establishment of pipe repair criteria. This conservatism has led to
either the repair or replacement of most of the BWR pipes found to be
cracked during inservice inspections performed in the United States since
1982. While the owners of the Nine Mile Point plant decided to replace all
of its recirculation piping, other BWR plant owners decided to extend the
life of cracked piping systems by induction heating stress improvement
and/or weld overlays.
One concern in applying weld overlay to cracked BWR pipes has been
the detrimental effect it has on subsequent reliability and sizing accuracy
of conventional ultrasonic techniques. 2 Crack detection through weld
overlay using techniques based solely on signal amplitude has been shown
by Park, Kuppermann and Shack at Argonne National Laboratory
(ANL) 3 to be unreliable. Similarly, sizing techniques based solely on
signal amplitude proved to be unacceptably inaccurate, 1 with depth
estimates apparently related to transducer beamwidth rather than to the
actual crack depth.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) considers the
application of weld overlays to cracked BWR pipes an interim solution
and has, accordingly, required reinspection of overlaid piping using
improved ultrasonic techniques at the next refueling outage. This
requirement for technique upgrading was imposed partly because of the
large uncertainties in the crack depth estimates of previous ultrasonic
examinations. Because no ultrasonic transducer and technique com-
bination could successfully characterize medium-sized IGSC cracks, the
SLIC-40 searching-and-sizing unit was developed. The SLIC-40 system
makes simultaneous use of S_hear and Longitudinal waves to I_nspect
materials for Cracks. The SLIC-40 design concepts are covered in
appropriate patent applications. The principles of operation of the
Multipulse-Observation Sizing Technique (MOST) developed for use
with the SLIC-40 and the results obtained with this multibeam transducer
 1GSCC monitoring in pipes with weld overlays 227

for cracked pipes with or without weld overlays are presented in the next
two sections, respectively.

Multipulse-observation sizing technique

The SLIC-40 featured by the MOST consists of two piezoelectric probes,
one mounted behind the other on a common plastic shoe, and connected
to an ultrasonic instrument operated in the transmit-receive mode. As
shown in Fig. la, the probe in the back (probe B) transmits a high-
angle longitudinal w a v e ( L b ) and a low-angle shear wave (Sb). Each
transmitted beam interacts twice with the IGSCC (see Fig. 1b). Following
multiple interactions of the incident waves with the crack extremities
through edge-diffraction or corner-reflection phenomena, the probe on
the front (probe A) receives sequentially three high-angle L a w a v e s (pulses
1,2 and 3) and one low-angle S a wave (pulse 4). A total of four pulses may
therefore be produced when the SLIC-40 is scanned over the cracked area
of a pipe along the pipe axis (X direction). Pulse 1 originates from the
upper crack extremity at through-wall distance Z 1 below the outside
surface (Z = 0). This size-information-carrying pulse diffracted by the
crack tip is enhanced against the background of irrelevant metallurgical
indications by directing the L b and L a beams toward the upper target area
(pseudofocusing). Pulse 2 is the result of directing these beams toward the
lower target area. The corner reflection of the mode-converted shear wave
C at the crack base results in a strong pulse 3 (main signal). This pulse is
used mainly to detect the crack in the first place. The corner reflection of
the incident shear wave S b at the crack base gives rise to pulse 4. This
pulse, along with pulse 2, is used mainly to discriminate against benign
counterbore, weld root, and other geometrical indications. Crack
confirmation is made possible by the finding that only in the presence of a
surface-connected planar (crack-like) flaw will the main signal be
associated with both a precursor (pulse 2) and a postcursor (pulse 4).
Crack sizing in the through-wall direction may be performed by three
independent methods incorporated into the MOST. The MOST is an
amplitude-independent technique based on the observation of up to four
crack diffracted or reflected pulses that result upon insonifying the entire
pipe wall with both longitudinal and shear waves. At the SLIC-40 module
position shown in Fig. la, the center of the transmitted L b beam is
directed toward the crack tip, the center of the transmitted S b beam is
directed toward the crack base, and the amplitude of pulse 1 (A 1) as well
228 G. J. Gruber

(a)

~
A TO RECEIVER

TO TRANSMITTER

• -o A s
' OO

I Z1

ID
~ C
BASE

(b)
PULSE ( ~ PULSE Q

ID L'-~Lb
ID

La meeting Lb at the crack tip La meeting Lb at the crack base

PULSE ® PULSE ®

Sb
ID
C ID

La meeting mode-converted Sb Sa meeting S b at the crack base

at the crack base

Fig. 1. Multiple interactions of the transmitted and mode-converted waves ofa SLIC-40
searching-and-sizing unit with an 1GSCC in a stainless steel pipe: (a) transmitted (L h, Sb),
mode-converted (C) and received (La, Sa) waves: (b) four pulses received from an ID crack.

as that of pulse 4 (A4) is maximum. The echodynamic curve (pulse

amplitude plotted against module position, Ai(X), i = 1,2, 3, or 4) is the
broadest for pulse 1 and the narrowest for pulse 4. It follows that the
echodynamic curves for pulses 1 and 4 are nearly synchronous for a large
crack, i.e. the rise and fall o f A I(X ) are in concert with those of A4(X ). In
contrast, the asynchronous echodynamic curves for pulses 2 and 3 peak
 IGSCC monitoring in pipes with weld overlays 229

shortly after the crack comes into view, i.e. at module positions to the
right of that shown in Fig. 1a. If the shape of the weld crown permits, the
SLIC-40 may be moved toward the weld far enough to determine arrival
time T 1 by peaking pulse 1. A linear measure of crack depth d is obtained
by subtracting from the pipe wall thickness h the through-wall distance Z 1
corresponding to the arrival time of pulse 1 (first estimate). Pulse 1 may
also be considered as the satellite of the main signal (pulse 3) since their
time separation t7 is practically independent of module position X. The
most useful properties of the MOST-SLIC-40 combination are (i) a is
linearly related to crack depth (second estimate), and (ii) a can be
measured even when there is a weld crown preventing the peaking of pulse
1. A third estimate of crack depth is obtained by measuring the time
separation 7 between pulses 1 and 2. The larger the crack, the larger the
doublet separations a and 7. The task of the ultrasonic examiner in the
field is to obtain a consistent set of T 1, a, and 7 measurements for an
accurate estimate of crack depth.

RESULTS
In November 1983, the MOST-SLIC-40 combination was evaluated
against 19 laboratory-grown IGSC cracks in stainless steel pipe
specimens, as reported by Gruber and Schick. 4 Confirmation of depth
estimates was sought by sectioning the specimens at locations near the
places of T 1 and a measurements. The average actual depths for three
randomly selected cracks were 6, 13 and 82 percent of pipe wall thickness.
In comparison, the ultrasonic depth estimates were 8, 12 and 76 percent,
respectively.
In March 1984, one weld-overlaid pipe sector (M13) containing
laboratory-grown IGSC cracks was examined with the SLIC-40 at the
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Nondestructive Evaluation
(NDE) Center. Another cracked pipe sector (M11) without weld overlay
was available for comparative purposes. The maximum extent of cracking
in the two pipe sectors was measured to be the same (about 20 percent of
wall thickness).
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) obtained field pipe weldments
removed from the Hatch 2 plant that have been repaired by weld overlays.
These pipes were backlay cladded because analysis ofinservice ultrasonic
inspection data indicated intermittent cracking in the weld heat-affected
zone. A workshop on the N D E of pipes with weld overlays was designed
230 G. J. Gruber

around these pipes by ANL in May 1984 to establish the IGSCC detection
reliabilities and sizing accuracies of ultrasonic techniques proposed for
pipes with weld overlays. All six teams participating in the workshop had
field experience with reactor piping. Liquid-penetrant and ultrasonic
examinations were performed on two 30-cm diameter, 23-ram thick (pipe
plus overlay) pipe-to-elbow weldments. Metallographic sectioning that
immediately followed the ultrasonic examinations confirmed the liquid-
penetrant test results in that pipe C2 contained 14 cracks and pipe C3 was
not cracked at all. The results of the crack detection trials are detailed in
an ANL report. 3 Few correct calls were made, and often the reliability of
an applied detection technique was further degraded by considerable

[~ 'OO

.I

i-~~ ~ i; I . . - " ~m=

Fig. 2. IGSCC 3E estimated with a SLIC-40 to be 5 mm deep (22 percent of pipe-plus-

overlay thickness).
 IGSCC monitoring in pipes with weM overlays 231

overcalling (false alarming). Only one circumferential crack (crack 3E

located 29cm along the weld length) was detected by more than two
teams. While the SLIC-40 was not used in its search mode, it was applied
to estimate the maximum depth of the crack at the location of the
strongest liquid-penetrant indication (crack 3E). The average of six T 1
and tr measurements suggested a crack depth of 21 percent of wall
thickness (pipe plus overlay). Metallographic sectioning revealed the
crack depth as being 22 percent of pipe-plus-overlay thickness (see Fig. 2
and note the considerable branching near the crack tip).
Two pipes removed from the Nine Mile Point plant and two more
overlaid pipes from the Hatch 2 plant were examined during the second
ANL workshop held in January 1985. A 46-mm long IGSCC in one of the
Nine Mile Point pipes (pipe 2) was sized with the SLIC-40 to be 56 + 6
percent of wall thickness (27mm). Another 37-mm long crack in the
second 29-mm thick Nine Mile Point pipe (pipe 3) was sized to be 27 _ 4
percent of wall thickness. The results ofmetallographic sectioning are not
available at the time of writing, nor is metallurgical confirmation for a
crack in a 41-mm thick overlaid pipe-to-endcap weldment from Hatch 2
tentatively (without positive detection results) sized to be 15 + 3 percent
of wall thickness deep.

CONCLUSIONS

The SLIC-40 permits amplitude-independent multipulse-observation

ultrasonic detection and sizing techniques to be applied to cracked BWR
piping systems with or without weld overlay. The transducer module is
applicable to pipes ranging in wall thickness from 10 to 50 mm, which
includes most BWR inservice piping. Downtime for pipe inspection is
greatly reduced with the SLIC-40 since the same mix of longitudinal and
shear waves can be used for locating, confirming, and sizing all sizes of
IGSCC. The MOST depth estimates were within 10 percent of actual sizes
as shown in destructive evaluation--an amount acceptable to the
industry.

REFERENCES
EPRI NDE Center, Ultrasonic IGSCC sizing capability and its relation to
flaw evaluation procedures, Final Report on Research Project 1570-2 to the
Electric Power Research Institute, Charlotte, North Carolina, August 1983.
232 G. J. Gruber

2. Beverly, R. L. and Baker, R. A., Evaluation of nondestructive examinations of

IGSCC countermeasures, Final Report on Research Project TI01-5 to the
Electric Power Research Institute, Southwest Research Institute, San
Antonio, Texas, July 1983.
3. Argonne National Laboratory, N D E ojpipes with weld overlays, Light Water
Reactor Safety Materials Engineering Research Programs Quarterly Report
ANL-84-60, Vol. 1, to the NRC (NUREG/CR-3998 Vol. 2), April-June 1984.
4. Gruber, G. J. and Schick, W. R., Characterization of flaws in pipeline girth
welds and austenitic piping welds using satellite pulses, Proc. 6th Int. Conj. on
Nondestructive Evaluation in the Nuclear Industry, Zfirich, Switzerland, 28
November-2 December, 1983, pp. 409 21.