Abstract:

Pressure equipment includes boiler, pressure vessel and pressure pipeline. Their safety operation is crucial to the national economic and the people’s daily lives. During construction of pressure equipment, nondestructive testing and evaluation (NDT&E) are applied to test and control the quality of materials and welding. During operation of pressure equipment, NDT&E are used to find the damage or material deterioration. According to the testing result of NDT&E, the safety status of pressure equipment can be evaluated and the residual service life could be given. Firstly, the importance to the NDT&E of pressure equipment is stated, and the NDT&E techniques which are matured or emerging are presented. Secondly, the emerging nondestructive testing techniques based on the radiation, acoustics, electromagnetism and so on are emphatically introduced, including their principle, characteristics and application range, in addition, their shortage and development trend are pointed out. Finally, the future requirement for NDT&E of pressure equipment is summarized, and the main researches area and key tasks which should be further carried out are proposed, to better guarantee the operation safety of pressure equipment.

Key words: development status, emerging technique, nondestructive evaluation, nondestructive testing, pressure equipment