Accurate measurements of creep strain are necessary to evaluate the condition and predict the remaining life of power plant constituent materials. Optical techniques are appropriate for this purpose as they are a non-contact method and can therefore be used to measure strain without requiring direct access to the surface. Within this class of techniques, the Auto-Reference Creep Management And Control (ARCMAC) camera system can be used to calculate the strain between two points using a series of silicon nitride (SiN) target spheres (the ARCMAC gauge). There are two iterations in system design, the Conventional ARCMAC and Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DSLR) ARCMAC.
Experiments are conducted to determine the absolute limit of accuracy of the systems in comparison to a strain gauge, and the relative accuracy across several orders of magnitude until specimen failure. In addition, tests have been performed using the ARCMAC gauge at elevated temperatures to evaluate the effect of temperature on the gauges and to investigate whether its accuracy diminishes in creep conditions.
It was found that both conventional and DSLR ARCMAC systems can be accurate to 60 µε or less. In accelerated creep tests, the ARCMAC gauge produced similar agreement to a linear variable displacement transducer when used to measure creep strain. Strain variations (under 500 µε) were noted on a steel plate subjected only to operational temperature and no stress. This error is very reasonable compared to a critical strain value of 93,000 µε in a given high temperature-service material. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) results using the DSLR ARCMAC system show approximately 4% error in measurement for plastic strains in the specimen. The two measures of strain measurement (using ARCMAC and DIC) can serve to complement each other.