Bi Et Al-2015-Materialwissenschaft Und Werkstofftechnik
Bi Et Al-2015-Materialwissenschaft Und Werkstofftechnik
Bi Et Al-2015-Materialwissenschaft Und Werkstofftechnik
The pitting corrosion characteristics of low carbon steel specimens are studied by
acoustic emission (AE) and electrochemical techniques, in a 3.0 wt.% NaCl solution
acidified to pH 2.0. The acoustic emission signals generated by pitting corrosion are
classified based on multiple acoustic emission parameters using K-means clustering
algorithm, then each classified signals are analyzed by acoustic emission param-
eters correlation plot and distribution with time. Furthermore, each acoustic source
characteristics is extracted using Gabor wavelet transform (WT) in the time and fre-
quency domain. An error back propagation (BP) artificial neural network (ANN) is
trained according to the classified signals, so as to successfully identify the acoustic
emission signals from parallel experiments. Experimental results show that the hy-
drogen bubble activation, oxidized film rupture and pit growth are typical acoustic
emission sources in pitting corrosion process, which can be effectively classified by
cluster analysis and recognized by back propagation neural network. The data gath-
ered from laboratory tests combined with the real data from acoustic emission on-
line storage tank floor inspection can help to evaluate the bottom corrosion severity
and interpreter the corrosion source, further to make the on-site testing more reliable
and reduce the risk.
Keywords: Low carbon steel / pitting corrosion / acoustic emission / cluster analysis /
artificial neural network
The tank bottom corrosion damage is a very com- 6, 7]. The hydrogen bubbles activities resulting from
plex process. Several ions such as Na+, Ca2+, SO42−, proton reduction and corrosion products movements
Cl−, S2−, and dissolved O2, H2S, CO2 in the sedimen- have been suggested as the main acoustic emission
tary water on tank bottom can induce the corrosion, sources in both crevice and pitting corrosion [1, 5, 8,
especially the chloride ions can invade the local de- 9]. Acoustic signals released from passive film rup-
terioration anticorrosion coating and result in pitting ture can also be detected in stainless steel, aluminum
corrosion under the coating, even perforation and and aluminum alloy pitting corrosion [9, 10]. Acous-
leaking [1]. Hence, periodic inspections are neces- tic emission sources of corroded metal and products
sary to prevent destruction from bottom corrosion. deposit can be observed in uniform corrosion [2].
Several conventional testing techniques such as Moreover, good correlations have been found be-
magnetic flux leakage (MFL) testing have been ap- tween corrosion rate and acoustic emission activity
plied to locate and describe the defects. However, (hits, events and amplitude), some empirical formu-
these techniques require a great deal of process inter- las to estimate corrosion severity are presented based
ruption and preparation, for example, emptying or on mass loss, polarization resistance measurements,
cleaning the tank bottom. Therefore, cost-effective electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and
and on-line diagnosis techniques are increasingly hydrogen evolution rate in previous papers [6, 7,
needed for detecting and evaluating corrosion da- 11–13]. As well, extracting and distinguishing the
mage of storage tanks bottom. The acoustic emission features of different acoustic emission sources can
method is considered to meet the requirements of an help to provide a reliable basis for acoustic emission
on-line inspection technique and has gained popular- on-line tank floor inspection and evaluation [14–16].
ity. Nevertheless, very few studies have been carried out
Acoustic emission is a non-destructive technique on the cluster analysis of acoustic emission signals
(NDT), defined by American Society for Testing of for the pitting corrosion of low carbon steel. In that
Materials (ASTM) as the phenomena whereby tran- context, the aim of the present study is to classify
sient elastic waves are generated by the rapid release the acoustic emission sources based on multiple
of energy from localized sources within a material, acoustic emission parameters using the K-means
also known as the stress wave emission or micro- clustering algorithm and back propagation artificial
seismic activity. It is widely used to detect process neural network.
of plastic yield deformation, fatigue fracture, corro-
sion damage and surface friction. Extracting and
analyzing the effective signal to evaluate the features 2 Experimental procedure
of acoustic emission sources is the bottleneck to
acoustic emission on-site inspection. Various re- 2.1 Material
searchers have shown that the acoustic emission sig- Specimens were cut into small squares using wire-
nals are closely related to corrosion factors and elec- electrode cutting method and its size was 2.9 × 2.9 ×
trochemical mechanisms, other researchers also have 0.2 cm3. Composition of steel is given in Table 1.
attempted to identify and characterize acoustic emis- The exposed surface was polished with a series of
sion sources in corrosion processes [2–5]. Different silicon carbide sheets of up to 1200 grit. The speci-
acoustic emission signals are generated by different mens were rinsed with de-ionized (DI) water then
corrosion sources. According to the source of the acetone and alcohol, dried in a desiccator, and last
signals, all the acoustic emission sources can be di- weighted, labeled and stored to be used.
vided into two groups: direct acoustic emission
sources and indirect acoustic emission sources (sec- 2.2 Experimental device
ondary acoustic emission sources). The acoustic The experiments were conducted in 3.0% NaCl solu-
emission sources released from metal deformation tion with pH adjusted to 2.0 with the addition of hy-
and cracking itself are considered as direct acoustic
emission sources, whereas the hydrogen bubbles ac- Table 1. Composition of the studied materials
tivation, passive film rupture, pits propagation and Element Fe C Si Mn P S
corrosion products movement in the corrosion pro- wt.% Balance 0.17 0.3 0.61 0.05 0.045
cess belong to indirect acoustic emission sources [2,
Overall reaction:
Besides above five characteristic parameters, three tween the acoustic emission characteristic param-
other derived parameters were also introduced in this eters. And the relationship can be established using
paper: the Pearson correlation coefficient. The Pearson cor-
(I) RA value: a calculated feature derived from relation coefficient can be defined as
“Rise time” divided by “Amplitude”, it is also P P
known as “Signal Slope”, in ms V–1. zx zy ðx xÞ ðy yÞ
r¼ i
¼ rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
P
i
P ffi ð8Þ
Rise time ðN 1Þ ðx xÞ2 ðy yÞ2
RA ¼ ð5Þ
Peak Amplitude i i
N P
P k acoustic emission signals intensively during this
Eðm1 ; m2 ; . . . mk Þ ¼ Iðxi 2 Ci Þ kxi mj k2 short time. The acoustic emission hits’ amplitude
i¼1 j¼1
distribution over time was shown in Figure 5. It in-
ð9Þ dicated that there existed two clusters among the
acoustic emission signals. Therefore, the K-means
1 ðxi 2 Ci Þ
IðXÞ ¼ : ð10Þ number was set to 2 preliminarily in this stage, the
0 ðxi 2
= Ci Þ cluster analysis was shown in Figures 6 and 7.
The acoustic emission signals were divided into
When satisfied the predetermined error, stop the two clusters accurately with K-means algorithm,
iterative procedure. Where mj is the center of cluster Figure 6 and 7. Amplitude distribution was within
Cj [18–21]. 32–45 dB in Cluster 1, and the amplitude was a little
It was observed that current density was relatively low, most of the ring-down counts number in acous-
large before 250 s of potentiostatic polarization in tic emission hits was no more than 25, the signal ab-
the initial stage, a large amount of hydrogen bubbles solute energy value was less than 100 eu but concen-
were produced by the proton reduction. Meanwhile trated, and the duration was mostly below 300 μs.
in about 100 ~ 230 s, the oxidized films exfoliation, While in Cluster 2, the amplitude was higher than
shrink and rupture were observed, which generated 45 dB, the counts and duration were larger than that
Figure 5. Acoustic emission hits’ amplitude distribution with Figure 7. Acoustic emission hits’ energy-duration distribution
time (1 eu = 10−14 V2 s)
Figure 11. Acoustic emission waveform and WT coefficients Figure 12. Acoustic emission waveform and WT coefficients
diagram of oxide and corrosion products film breakage. (a) diagram of pit growth. (a) waveform and (b) 2D WT diagram
waveform and (b) 2D WT diagram (Frequency resolution = (Frequency resolution = 10 kHz, Wavelet size = 600)
10 kHz, Wavelet size = 600)
above analysis, it was inferred that Cluster 1 was tribution of WT coefficients, the energy was very
mainly produced by the hydrogen bubbles, Cluster 2 concentrated, the frequency bands corresponding to
was mainly generated by the oxidized film rupture at center energy was in the range of 130–180 kHz, and
the initial stage and corrosion products cracking at the peak frequency was about 165 kHz. The acoustic
stable pit growth stage, while Cluster 3 was only resonance frequency of a single bubble in water ne-
generated by pit propagation at stable stage. glecting the effects of surface tension and viscous at-
To further confirm the inference above, the Gabor tenuation given by Minnaert is
wavelet transform (WT) was presented to analyze sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
the three cluster acoustic emission signals character- 1 3γp0
f0 ¼ ð11Þ
istics of time-frequency localization. WT coeffi- 2πr0 ρ0
cients as magnitudes over time and frequency were
shown in Figures 10–12, respectively. The color Where r0 is the bubble radius, P0 the ambient pres-
coding in the wavelet transform encodes the magni- sure, γ the ratio of specific heats for the gas, and ρ0
tudes of the WT, the colors usually are autoscaled: is the liquid density. However, A. Prateepasen and
the peak value of the transform corresponds to red his colleagues considered the maximum diameter of
and the minimum value corresponds to pink. The en- a stable bubble, Dmax and the collapse instantaneous
ergy features of signal in the time-frequency domain pressure, Pb they revised the Minnaert equation as
were extracted [22–25]. [3, 21, 26–31]
The bubble acoustic emission signal was similar
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
to the resonant signal, Figure 10. It was strongly re- 1 3γpb
lated to the hydrogen bubble oscillation, movement fb ¼ ð12Þ
and cavitation in solution. In the time-frequency dis- πDmax ρ0
sponding to the three acoustic emission sources by dation of China (51301201) and the Key State
back propagation artificial neural network. The Science and Technology Projects of China
acoustic emission hits data was chosen from the last (2008ZX05017-004-1). We also wish to express our
one hour of potentiostatic polarization test stage, in gratitude to the Shengli Oilfield Technical Test Cen-
this stage acoustic emission signals were mainly ter, Sinopec for AMSY-5 device and the Germany
generated by pits propagation and corrosion pro- Vallen-Systeme GmbH for AGU-Vallen Wavelet
ducts cracking, while hydrogen bubble signals were software.
relatively less in this stage. The dominated pitting
signals were concentrated in low-duration, low-en-
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Received in final form: December 1st 2014 T 347