TPT September 2007

T ube M ills: R olling & F orming M ethods

Ultrasonic inspection on welded pipe mills

Sofratest SA, France, specialises in pipe mill inspection systems using the ultrasonic method. These inspection systems are fully compliant with standards such as API5L, Shell, Aramco and IPS. The inspection systems can be used for a range of jobs on spiral arc welded (SAW) pipe mills (diameter 219mm to 3,000mm and up to 25mm thickness). These include

examination of strip lamination (up to 2m width), edge lamination (before forming in the first 50mm), body lamination (using an oscillator), and weld examination before cutting (including HAZ). The inspection systems can also perform offline examination of the weld (longitudinal and transversal defects), HAZ, ends and body laminations.

› Online weld examination

All systems are PC-based, and use high integration circuitry allowing multi-channel configurations (up to 32). The company has also developed dual-channel boards, reducing the size of equipment, and making maintenance easier. For all configurations, data processing is performed for traceability, per coil or per pipe. All relevant information concerning the product under test is associated with a full record of the measurements of all channels in process. All information is linked with the mill tracking system or pipe history system.

For ERW pipe mills (diameter 50mm to 600mm and up to 16mm thickness), inspection systems can be used for examination of strip lamination (up to 2m width), and edge lamination (before forming in the first 50mm). Online examination is available for weld scarf monitoring (for thickness and profile measurement) and weld/ HAZ. Also possible is inspection of offline weld, HAZ, ends and body laminations, in addition to full body lamination examination. Offline examination of weld and pipe ends is available for longitudinal UO saw pipes (thickness up to 35mm).

fi Sofratest manufactures pipe inspection systems for applications such as spiral pipe mills

Sofratest SA – France Fax : +33 1 3475 5341

Email : sales@sofratest.com Website : www.sofratest.com

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S eptember /O ctober 2007