Menu
Because it allows inspection without interfering with a product’s final use, NDE provides a balance between quality control & cost-effectiveness.
NDE is a highly valuable technique that is used to detect instabilities, validate the integrity of materials, discover performance outside of tolerances, recognize failed components, or expose inadequate control systems.
A major advantage of NDE is the ability to precisely measure wall thickness in places where access is limited to only one side of a test piece, as in a pipe, vessel, or tank, or where simple mechanical measurement is impossible or impractical for other reasons, such as part size or access limitations.
Ultrasonic thickness gauges can be used on virtually any engineering material, including most metals, plastics, glass, ceramics, rubber, fiberglass, and composites.
Magnetic particle testing works by magnetizing a ferromagnetic specimen using a magnet or special magnetizing equipment. If the specimen has a discontinuity, the magnetic field flowing through the specimen is interrupted and leakage field occurs. Finely milled iron particles coated with a dye pigment are applied to the specimen. These are attracted to leakage fields and cluster to form an indication directly over the discontinuity. The indication is visually detected under proper lighting conditions.
Magnetic particle inspection can use either wet or dry magnetic media. The dry method is more portable, while the wet method is generally more sensitive since the liquid carrier gives the magnetic particles additional mobility. Indications that are formed after applying the magnetic field must be interpreted by a skilled inspector. This requires the individual to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant indications.
The following are the advantages of magnetic particle inspection:
PT is used to detect casting, forging, and welding surface defects such as cracks, surface porosity, leaks in new products, and fatigue cracks on in-service components.
Inspections requiring UT, MT, and PT are not typically regarded as Visual Inspection as these inspection methodologies require specialized equipment. All EEI Visual Inspectors are experienced, specially trained, and certified by API, AWS, and/or ACCP.
This is done using an X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analyzer. This machine is highly portable and can record numerous readings in different locations over a relatively short timescale.