Abstract
In recent years, the demand has been increased for establishing nondestructive inspection technique for detection of pre-existing plastic strain to ensure integrity of the structure such as nuclear power plant. In this study, potentiostatic etching method is applied to detect and measure plastic strain imposed to austenitic stainless steel by tensile straining. After potentiostatic etching (1N HNO_3, -600 mV_<SCE>, 20min), twin lines and slip lines appear as etched lines on the surface of specimen because of the preferential dissolution of the both bands. The transition from twinning to slip occurred notably in SUS316NG in the temperature range of 30-100℃, and there is one-to-one correlation between etched slip line density and pre-existing strain for the specimens strained at 250℃.
