Assessment of Heat Treated Inconel X-750 Alloy by Nonlinear Ultrasonics

The nonlinear ultrasonic technique is known as a promising tool for monitoring material states related with micro-structural changes, with improved sensitivity compared to conventional nondestructive testing techniques. It is well known that degradation of material properties is generally accompanied by the increase of material nonlinearity. However, the trend has been rarely investigated in the opposite way for improved material properties. In this paper, nonlinear ultrasonic waves are used to assess the material condition of heat treated Inconel X-750 alloy based on the nonlinear acoustic parameters. Material property testing is conducted to compare the influence of heat treatment for comparison with the nonlinear parameter based prediction. The material properties of specimens are improved by applying heat treatment, with significant decreases in the acoustic nonlinearity. The better the mechanical property achieves via heat treatment, the smaller the acoustic nonlinearity becomes. It can be concluded that the nonlinear acoustic technique can be used to evaluate the effect of heat treatment nondestructively, and to optimize the process, thus providing another indication of the feasibility of using the nonlinear ultrasonic technique for material characterization.