Inspection Techniques

Casting integrity is essential for providing components that meet design criteria for strength and fatigue performance. As the leading method of manufacturing metal components in the rail industry, maintaining quality and consistency is a continuing struggle for car owners and builders. Internal shrinkage and voids due to insufficient metal flow are issues commonly found in casting molds which are not designed or utilized properly. Using casting simulation software, potential issues can be discovered upfront and robust mold designs can be created that offer a tolerance for the variance or variations in casting conditions that are present in the real world. Strato, Inc. has extensively studied the effectiveness of these simulations in foundries through advanced inspection techniques. It is evident that casting simulations can not only locate, but also explain shrinkage cavities and voids through material density plots and inspection of directional solidification via critical fraction solid time plots. This approach is markedly more efficient than the traditional trial and error method, where mold makers rely on experience and destructive testing to develop acceptable mold designs. With recent advances in simulation software, the labor and time-intensive ways of the past have been supplanted by a more scientific approach to the problem. Understanding the fluid dynamics and thermodynamics of the casting process provides a means of creating a stable, repeatable final product. This higher quality final product can be delivered faster to the customer and at a far less expense by identifying problem areas prior to the tooling and sampling processes. Case-studies explored by the Strato engineering team suggest that using this software decreases the fallout rate.

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New inspection techniques yield good results in the field

NDT International ◽

10.1016/0308-9126(89)91369-2 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 59

Keyword(s):

Inspection Techniques

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Assessing the Condition and Estimating the Remaining Lives of Pressure Components in a Methanol Plant Reformer: Part 1 — NDE

Volume 6A: Materials and Fabrication ◽

10.1115/pvp2016-63207 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Brian E. Shannon ◽

Carl E. Jaske ◽

Gustavo Miranda

Keyword(s):

High Temperature ◽

Creep Damage ◽

Sensor Technology ◽

Special Focus ◽

Laser Measurements ◽

Typical Data ◽

Multiple Sensor ◽

High Temperature Components ◽

Inspection Techniques ◽

Non Destructive

Statoil Tjelbergodden operates a 2,400 ton/day methanol plant in Norway. In order to assess the condition and reliability of high temperature components within the reformer, a series of advanced non-destructive examination (NDE) technologies were applied to radiant catalyst tubes, outlet pigtails, and outlet collection headers. The inspection techniques were selected and developed to provide data that could easily be used in the engineering assessment of the high-temperature components. Special focus was given to detecting and quantifying high-temperature creep damage. This paper describes the NDE techniques that were employed and provides examples of typical data obtained by using the techniques. Catalyst tubes were inspected using the H SCAN® (Figure 1) multiple sensor technology. This technique utilizes two types of ultrasonic sensors, eddy current sensors, laser measurements, and elevation location sensors in scanning each catalyst tube. The H SCAN® P-CAT™ (Figure 2) technique is applied to outlet pigtails, while the H SCAN® H-CAT™ (Figure 3) technique is applied to outlet headers.

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Developments in inspection techniques

NDT International ◽

10.1016/0308-9126(90)90137-d ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 166-167

Keyword(s):

Inspection Techniques

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Excitation-invariant pre-processing of thermographic data

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part O Journal of Risk and Reliability ◽

10.1177/1748006x18770888 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 232 (4) ◽

pp. 435-446

Author(s):

Serafeim Moustakidis ◽

Athanasios Anagnostis ◽

Apostolos Chondronasios ◽

Patrik Karlsson ◽

Kostas Hrissagis

Keyword(s):

Composite Structures ◽

Signal To Noise Ratio ◽

Signal Reconstruction ◽

Test Material ◽

Test Surface ◽

Nondestructive Testing Method ◽

Uneven Heating ◽

Processing Techniques ◽

Inspection Techniques ◽

Non Destructive

There is a large number of industries that make extensive use of composite materials in their respective sectors. This rise in composites’ use has necessitated the development of new non-destructive inspection techniques that focus on manufacturing quality assurance, as well as in-service damage testing. Active infrared thermography is now a popular nondestructive testing method for detecting defects in composite structures. Non-uniform emissivity, uneven heating of the test surface, and variation in thermal properties of the test material are some of the crucial factors in experimental thermography. These unwanted thermal effects are typically coped with the application of a number of well-established thermographic techniques including pulse phase thermography and thermographic signal reconstruction. This article addresses this problem of the induced uneven heating at the pre-processing phase prior to the application of the thermographic processing techniques. To accomplish this, a number of excitation invariant pre-processing techniques were developed and tested in this article addressing the unwanted effect of non-uniform excitation in the collected thermographic data. Various fitting approaches were validated in light of modeling the non-uniform heating effect, and new normalization approaches were proposed following a time-dependent framework. The proposed pre-processing techniques were validated on a testing composite sample with pre-determined defects. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed processing algorithms in terms of removing the unwanted heat distribution effect along with the signal-to-noise ratio of the produced infrared images.

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