Global Marketplace
150
M
arch
2014
STRIP for SSAW and ERW Pipes
ON-LINE Laminations Inspection
100% coverage
by Ultrasonic Technique
Spiral mill 2 m coil - Thickness 5 – 25 mm
ERW mill 1900 mm coil - Thickness 4-16 mm
SOFRATEST supplies complete turnkey stations to be placed in the production line.
It follows the last quality standard like
:
API5L 44
th
edition – SHELL – ARAMCO
The design is not limited in size.
SOFRATEST supplies complete traceability of the measurement and a mill process connexion for full automated operation.
Also available ON-LINE and OFF-LINE UT stations.
Contact us, we MANUFACTURE supply complete mechanical devices and UT for ON-LINE
and OFF-LINE testing. We do retrofit of old installations.
SOFRATEST - Z.I. du Petit Parc - 78920 Ecquevilly –
France
Tel : + 33 1 34 75 50 00 - Fax : + 33 1 34 75 53 41
E-mail :
- Website :
Hall 6
Stand N° 6C47
In brief . . .
‘Prosaic Pipe Stymied Seattle’s Big Bertha’
The headline, from the
New York Times
, announced the
solution to a mystery impediment that had stopped the world’s
largest-diameter tunnel-boring machine in its tracks and put
a $3.1 billion project on hold for most of the last month of last
year. A 119-foot length of steel pipe – neither very old nor very
big: about eight inches in diameter – had stopped a machine
equipped to chew its way through rock and timber.
“Bertha”, the $80 million, five-storey-tall machine, was digging
a new path for Route 99 in the state of Washington, one of the
primary north-south arteries in the Pacific Northwest, when
on 6 December it became stuck 60 feet below the streets of
Seattle. Tunnel crews worked extensively over the holidays –
probing, sifting and speculating – until, on 2 January, the pipe
was discovered protruding through one of several exploratory
openings that had been drilled in Bertha’s cutter-head.
According to the Seattle news site
crosscut.com
, in 2002 a
Washington State Department of Transportation contractor
installed the pipe to conduct a test on the Alaskan Way Viaduct,
following an earthquake. The location of the site was included
in planning documents for the tunnel. A project manager for
the tunnelling contractor, Seattle Tunnel Partners, said it would
have been assumed that related apparatus had been removed
when the testing site was decommissioned.
Officials have not said how much the delay will cost, or how
it will affect the long-term schedule of the 1.7-mile tunnel
project. There also was no early word on possible assignment
of blame.
Automotive
›
For the first time in nine years, Volkswagen in 2013 sold
more vehicles in China than General Motors, recapturing
its place as the biggest foreign carmaker in the world’s largest
auto market.
According to company data obtained by
Bloomberg News
from such researchers as IHS Automotive and LMC
Credit: Ton Koldewijn
