Abstract

A tee joint weldment was produced from SAE 304L austenitic stainless steel plates by the shielded metal arc process. The weld was a completely penetrated 45° single bevel groove weld. A defect free weldment was produced. The weld metal consisted of orientated and coarse austenitic grains. A hole was drilled in the base metal and the weld metal. A notch was drilled in the heat affected zone, adjacent to the weld metal boundary. Ultrasonic inspections were done with various probes and probe positions. The following results were obtained from the experiments: The extended sound path decreased the detection of the discontinuities, the defect detection character of transversal wave probes increased with the probe frequency, and the defect detection character of longitudinal wave probes decreased with the probe frequency.

Key words: Ultrasonic testing, austenitic stainless steel welding, NDT and NDE of stainless steels, ultrasonic inspection of austenitic steel welds.