UT best equipments

[pphawk]

Hi every one, I am going to buy an UT equipment in order to inspect steel girders. I have seen that Krautkramer (GE) is well used in this field of inspection but, is this the best equipment to perfom this inspection? What other brand can I use for UT. Thanks folks!!

 

[DarthSoilsGuy]

what defects are you interested in? are you field or lab inspecting moment welds (shear wave)? or are you just interested in lamination issues (UT thickness) from fabrication?

krautkramer is a good supplier and will help you pick the most appropriate for your work.

 

[CoryPad]

Olympus NDT is the other big supplier:

http://www.olympusndt.com/en/

Regards,

Cory

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

 

[metengr]

Based on past expierence with working under adverse conditions in the field with our NDT technicians, I would agree with the krautkramer brand.

 

[pphawk]

Hi Darthsoilsguy, I am goino to inspect at both, shop and field. The defects that I am interested in are piping porosity, slag inclusions, incomplete fusion an penetration. I have to inspect up to 2" thick flanges of A588 steel. what do you think about Sonatest Ut equipment?
Thanks for your reply

 

[gtaw]

Just curious, what type of equipment did you use when you took your training?

Best regards - Al

 

[DarthSoilsGuy]

i have not worked with Sonatest equipment.

i take it that you're interested in "weld inspection". you're going to want a product that does both SHEAR WAVE and compression wave testing.

There are a lot of products in the market that perform only compression wave testing. Applications of which are Ultrasonic Thickness and testing for casting flaws such as lamination issues to name the two biggest.

i'm not aware of any UT equipment that only does shear wave and not compression wave, but i suppose it could exist.

I'm sorry if the following speculation is off-target, but if you're the lead on starting an NDT program at your work you should check out the link below and read it well, as well as the ASNT website in general. i'm only saying this because i had the duty of starting an NDT-UT program from scratch and the more i investigated, the more complicated it got. if my speculation is on-target, you may need to have an NDT Level 3 UT on-board, either directly hired or as a consultant. if you have to get a Level 3, you'll want his/her input on the equipment since a lot of them are dealers too and there could be big discounts by lumping your equipment and services together in one purchase.

http://www.asnt.org/certification/leveliii/pd-accp.pdf

 

[DarthSoilsGuy]

http://www.asnt.org/publications/standards/cp-189/index.htm

this was what i meant to post, both links are good stuff though.

i've changed industry a bit and am not familiar with this document "ANSI/ASNT CP-189-2006 ASNT Standard for Qualification and Certification of Nondestructive Testing Personnel". What i had to work with was
"Recommended Practice No. SNT-TC-1A [2001]"

 

[dbooker630]

I have Sonic UT equipment which was bought when Sonic was part of Staveley but most of Staveley's lineup is now under Olympus.

 

[ndeguy]

DarthSoilGuy

Both documents (CP 189 and SNT-TC-1A) cover NDT personnel certification via an employer-based system, that is there are no requirments to be trained at an approved training centre, examined at an authorised test centre and certified by a centralised personnel certification scheme. These latter, e.g. ACCP and European EN 473-compliant national schemes are either administered or authorised by an approved technical/professional body e.g. ASNT in the USA, BINDT innthe UK. There are positives and negatives about both systems. A major difference is that generally with employer-based schemes the qualification is NOT portable (once the employee leaves the employ the certifcate is revoked whereas generally the central certificate is issued to the technician and as long as s/he complies with the continuing conditions of the certifiation scheme s/he remains qualified after leaving the employment.

The major difference between CP-189 and SNT-TC-1A is that, if quoted in the contract or specification, ALL of the requirements of the former are mandatory whereas if the contract or specification calls for personnel qualification to the latter then it is purely a RECOMMENDED practice and the organisation can run it as they wish. One essential of both documents is a "Written Practice" (WP)which should fully describe the certification process of the organisation. This document should be reviewed by potential users of the NDT services as a check of how NDT personnel are qualified and certified. The WP may show that all qualification and certification activities are carried out "in-house" or that all or some of the activities are contracted out to an outside agency. The Company Level III is central to the operation of the system and again may be an employee, even an employee not particularly involved in daily NDT activities or may be a consultant.

As usual "caveat emptor". I hope this helps.

Regarding UT equipment - the original thrust of this thread - there are many manufacturers of good UT equipment all over the world. India is a big producer and I should imagine China as well. Whereas 20 or 30 years ago the portable UT flaw detector was the mainstay of the manufacturer in order to have a market they now need to produce and sell more sophisiticated pieces of kit - some general, some specialised applications. Phased Array equipment with full data capture and archiving for later review are now becoming the commonplace.

Nigel Armstrong
Karachaganak Petroleum
Kazakhstan