Tube and pipe inspection with rotating transducers

Rotating transducers are required when it is not possible to rotate the tube or pipe for 100% flawdetection and thickness testing. For ultrasonic testing the product must be submersed in water for the coupling of the ultrasound.

Depending on the speed, type of defects to be detected and required dimensional measurements a number of transducers is positioned in the rotator. This could easily be 24 or more for large systems. Most test systems inspect the tubes for longitudinal and transverse defects but also oblique testing is required more often. In addition it is possible to measure wall thickness, ID/OD and excentricity. The in the rotating section water must be absolutely free from airbubbles which would otherwise cause false echo’s or loss of signals which would otherwise be of influence to the 100% inspection. Tubes from as small as 6 m diameter to 400 mm can be tested with these systems.

Inspection Technology has developed special firmware and software for the MFD900 system to optimize for this type of tube en pipe inspection. Complete with reporting software, multicolour paintmarking on defects detected and sorting output.
The high prf of the MFD900 of 20KHz per channel allows for very high speed testing only limited by physical laws.

Transducer frequencies up to 20 MHz can be applied with very sharp focused transducers to meet the most critical demands for e.g. the nuclear industry.

Dual rotating tube inspection system

Tube testing with dual rotation unit system

During inspection of one diameter tube the second rotator can be set up and calibrated for inspection of another tube dimension.

The platform can be simply rotated, meaning a minimum loss of time to continue pipe inspection of another dimension.