ABSTRACT

Boiler headers form an important part of all type of boilers. Since headers are always under
high pressure, utmost care should be taken for fabricating them. During the course of boiler
operation, the header can be subjected to several different types of failures, due to the
temperatures and pressure transients imparted by todays cycling, load and peaking modes.
One of the potential failures for headers is ligament cracking.
Circumferential butt welds on high-temperature/pressure steam headers have proven
susceptible to deterioration. They should be regularly inspected to detect the progression of
ligament cracking. The mechanism that contributes in the initiation of ligament cracking is a
combination of localized creep damage and thermal fatigue damage. Therefore detecting of
ligament cracks is of optimum importance and the use of Time of Flight Diffraction (TOFD)
offers rapid inspection with excellent flaw detection and sizing capacities. The diffraction
technique provides critical sizing capability with relative indifference to bevel angle or flaw
orientation.
This paper deals with an establishment of TOFD techniques to detect and size ligament
cracks in thick walled boiler headers. The study is conducted using defected samples that
consist of artificial discontinuities. Difficulty was experienced when using TOFD to locate
and size the diffracted tips from the defects when performing a circumferential scan, due to
the requirement of curvature correction. The conventional probe centre separation (PCS)
calculation cannot be used due to the curved nature of headers on performing a
circumferential scan, so a modified PCS that takes in account of the curvature of the header is
established and the sizing of the artificial defects is also done.

Keywords: Time of Flight Diffraction, Probe centre separation, header, curvature correction,
sound path distance.