Leak Detection and Evaluation for Power Plant Boiler Tubes Using Acoustic Emission

Boiler tubes in power plants are often leaked due to various material degradations including creep and thermal fatigue damage under severe operating conditions such as high temperature and high pressure over an extended period of time. To monitor and diagnose the tubes on site and in real time, the acoustic emission (AE) technology was applied. We developed an AE leak detection system, and used it to study the variation of AE signal from the on-site tubes in response to the changes in the boiler operation condition and to detect the locations of leakage based on it. Detection of leak was performed by acquiring and evaluating the signals in separate regimes of high and low frequency signal. As a result of these studies, we found that on-line monitoring and detection of leak location for boiler tubes is possible using the developed system. Thus, the system is expected to contribute to the safe operation of power plants, and prevent economic losses due to potential leak.