AUT Cladding Inspection

The Automated Scanning system uses special signal and gate settings to establish the integrity of the bond between the base material and the overlay and gives an accurate establishment of the remaining overlay thickness. This technology is useful to all clad vessels and piping to provide our clients with the data they need to evaluate an equipments remaining life and fitness for service evaluations.

THE TECHNOLOGY

FURTHER ADVANTAGES

Apart from immense cost-savings through the elimination of the need to grid large areas, there are further advantages:

• Can be used with ferrous and non-ferrous materials
• More tolerant of vessel temperatures.
• Provides digital record of inspection.
• Easily repeatable for future outages or monitoring projects.
• Pinpoints exact defect location for replacement or repair.
• Accurately sizes defects to help establish fitness for service.

 

The Ultrasonics

Conventional dual-element ultrasonic transducers are used to establish the interface signal of the clad material and the actual vessel back-wall signal. The transmitted sound waves reflect from the interface and are received with less impedance in the second element which may become less visible using a single element transducer. Special gating is then used to establish the difference in thickness of the clad material. When the data is collected in this manner, analyzing the different signals is easier and faster which helps expedite the turnaround of information to the client.

Imaging

 

 

 

Imaging is crucial when explaining data to clients. Understanding data plots and how they are configured makes the realization of the data easier to “see” in ones mind. The data plot to the right shows an A-Scan, B-Scan, C-Scan, and a D-Scan representation of ultrasonic imaging on a clad sample. The image shows a total thickness of the sample.

 

The image at right shows the clad thickness of the above sample. Note how the actual waves in the cladding are better defined on both the B-Scan and the C-Scan.