Microstructural Characterization of Precipitation Process in a Nickel-Alloy by Non-linear Ultrasonic

Abstract

The nonlinear ultrasonic technique, using the amplitude ratio of higher harmonic frequencies and fundamental frequency, has been found to be strongly sensitive to the microstructure of bulk materials. It was reported earlier that in Al 2024 alloy the nonlinearity parameter increased with the generation of coherency precipitates. Similarly, Hurley et al reported that the nonlinear parameter linearly increases as a function of inhomogeneous strain due to the generation of a precipitate in low alloy steel. In contrast to these studies, in which researchers have studied ultrasonic nonlinearity in the context of single crystals and simple metals, we would like to study structural materials for the purpose of structural health monitoring. In order to characterize the material properties in facilities and during operation, one needs to understand the relation between the material degradation of structural materials and the features of the NDE parameters. Therefore, in the present study we attempted to assess the thermal degradation in one such structural material namely: Nimonic-263, nickel based precipitation hardenable alloy using the nonlinear technique. From the present study it was found that the response of the non-linear ultrasonic parameter b is faster and larger compared to the normal velocity measurements.