Ultrasonic examination of stainless steel EB welds by an immersion technique

The authors report the development of an ultrasonic examination method of austenitic stainless steel electron beam (EB) welds. This method is based on an automatic immersion technique employing focused transducers and is aimed at detecting both the weld soundness and penetration. The authors describe the examination procedure with a calibration of the ultrasonic equipment, a complete weld scanning, and a repetition of the calibration for matters of verification. They also describe how results are interpreted in terms of wave soundness (attenuation) and weld penetration. They discuss the reliability of the examination procedure. They comment results obtained for EB butt welds in a AISI 304 pipe