Monitoring of GFRP pipelines in Power Plants using acoustic emission testing

In coal-fired power plants, the flue gas is transported through fibreglassreinforced pipelines to cooling towers during the combustion of the respective raw material, which often serve as a marker for a power plant in the landscape. These glass-fibre reinforced pipelines are located at great heights and can have very large diameters. Up to now, testing has been carried out as part of inspections during planned shutdowns and is associated with corresponding costs. The article discusses the use of acoustic measurement methods based on a 4-month installation at the Niederaußem power plant. Measurement results based on the acoustic emission analysis were shown. For the acoustic emission measurements, a repaired site was instrumented and different parameters like hit/event rates, acoustic energies as well as weighted peak frequencies of the acoustic signals were recorded over the monitoring period of 4 months at power plant Niederaußem. In a second power plant Neurath a 5-month AE monitoring were carried out. This measurement results were discussed as well.