In the paper the results of the acoustic emission (AE) based detection and characterization of stress-corrosion cracking (SCC) in stainless steel are presented. As supportive methods for AE interpretation, electrochemical noise, specimen elongation measurements, and digital imaging of the specimen surface were used. Based on the defined qualitative and quantitative time and power spectra characteristics of the AE bursts, a manual and an automatic procedure for the detection of crack related AE bursts were introduced. The results of the analysis of the crack related AE bursts indicate that the AE method is capable of detecting large scale cracks, where, apart from intergranular crack propagation, also some small ductile fractures occur. The sizes of the corresponding ductile fracture areas can be estimated based on a relative comparison of the energies of the detected AE bursts. It has also been shown that AE burst time and power spectra features can be successfully used for the automatic detection of SCC.
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