ABSTRACT
Nondestructive determination of material properties is becoming increasingly important in design and life assessment considerations of components and systems. Residual stress and fracture toughness, along with flaw sizing, are critical in decisions on whether to repair or replace items found to be questionable. These two factors, residual stress and toughness, are of concern in new materials, as well as aged material where environmentally induced material property changes need to be monitored. Further, the directional isotropy and homogeneity may be of interest in choosing material for construction of critical components. Progress is being made in the development of NDE techniques for determination of these properties. To be able to nondestructively investigate for abnormal material conditions would enable the engineer not only to optimize the design but also to optimize the maintenance cycle. Topics to be reviewed in this chapter represent some novel ultrasonic methods available for stress measurement, texture studies, grain size determination and inspection of layered material for interface defects. Other ultrasonic techniques proposed for similar investigations are described in the several references which are listed.
