TWI Bulletin, September - October 2009
Case Study: Bespoke solutions using advanced phased array techniques
Phased array inspection has been widely used in oil and gas, power generation, aerospace, automotive and even the medical industry for finding very small anomalies.
In TWI, the NDT Group has successfully used this technique on a wide range of applications. Special procedures have been developed, validated and deployed in different types of industries.
The equipment available includes:
- Harfang Microtechniques
- Olympus Tomoscan Focus
- Olympus Omniscan MX PA
- Peak NDT Micropulse 5PA
- Zetec Tomoscan III
One such project involved phased array inspection of the wall to floor plate inner fillet weld of a storage tank.
The objective of this work was to measure and inspect the throat thickness of the inner fillet weld between the vertical wall and the base plate of the storage tank. To perform the inspection, TWI developed a bespoke procedure to meet the requirement of the application and designed and tested a specialised manipulator and transducers. Results from the inspections showed that delamination on the annular plate inside of the tank could be detected.
TWI NDT's staff can carry out bespoke training and workshops for Member companies in all aspects of phased array ultrasonics. Member companies wishing to find out more details should contact ndt@twi.co.uk
