The use of thermoelastic stress analysis to identify defects in polymeric materials
UNSPECIFIED. (2004) The use of thermoelastic stress analysis to identify defects in polymeric materials. INSIGHT, 46 (9). pp. 550-553. ISSN 1354-2575Full text not available from this repository.
The work described here emerged from an EPSRC-funded programme investigating the thermomechanical ageing of selected engineering plastics used in the offshore oil & gas industry. The polymers investigated arc PEEK and PEK, materials of the polyaryletherketone family. The latest infrared array thermoelastic camera, coupled with an innovative five-times magnification zoom lens, was used to identify and quantify sub-surface defects in the materials, which had been aged in high pressure gas environments at elevated temperatures. The results were subsequently verified using a scanning electron microscope. The work demonstrates that Thermoelastic Stress Analysis (TSA) is a powerful technique, capable of identifying defects of less than 100 microns in size. The observed defects arise from so-called 'explosive decompression' (ED) damage; here absorbed pressurised gas can cause swelling, blistering and fracturing of non-metallic materials when the external pressure is rapidly reduced. ED is a significant industry issue for sealing elastomers, meaning that thermoplastics receive relatively little research attention.
|Item Type:||Journal Article|
|Subjects:||T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)|
|Journal or Publication Title:||INSIGHT|
|Publisher:||BRITISH INST NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTING|
|Official Date:||September 2004|
|Number of Pages:||4|
|Page Range:||pp. 550-553|
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