Ultrasound Used to Test Deep Welds
Posted: 05 September 2005
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How do you use ultrasound to test deep welds in refinery reactors? That was a question Saudi Aramco and its Riyadh Refinery needed to answer.
A team was gathered. Fathi E. Al-Qadeeb, a technology engineer, and Mohammad A. AbuFour, a nondestructive testing ultrasonic senior technician, along with five technicians - Abdul Latif Al-Qanbar, Saeed Al-Baggal, Ali Al-Mugarub, Angelito Ilagan and John James - carried out the assignment.
The team designed samples of the reactor material with artificial defects and 3-mm stainless-steel cladding, which protects the vessel's steel from its corrosive contents.
The samples were custom manufactured overseas to closely duplicate the material and geometry of the actual vessels to be inspected. Once they received the samples, the team developed an ultrasonic procedure to carry out examinations on welds.
Ultrasound is used in the industrial and medical fields to look inside structures and patients.
Ultrasound works by sending energy waves into a subject and receiving reflected signals from features inside - similar to the way a ship uses sonar. The received signals are processed by software and displayed for visual interpretation.
Typical thicknesses of materials used in construction in the petrochemical industry are between 6 mm and 50 mm.
This range of thickness normally can be tested using ultrasonic techniques. However, testing deep welds of up to the 300 mm thickness in vessel walls is challenging and had never been attempted by Saudi Aramco technicians.
In June, the team inspected eight reactors covering 500 meters of welds and 56 different weld configurations in thicknesses from 35 mm to 270 mm. Reactor welds were ultrasonically scanned for defects, including cracks and separation in the vessels' protective lining.
The procedure, developed by the Inspection Department, saved Riyadh Refinery the cost of bringing in specialized technicians from outside the Kingdom. The Inspection Department will provide the technology to other refineries to cut costs there.
Posted by Editor Pipeline Magazine
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