NDT inspections are an integral part of the oil and gas and petrochemical industries, along with several other industries, including chemicals, aerospace, automotive, and defense. The overall goal of all these industries is to detect flaws in components to reduce failure and increase reliability.

In the petrochemical industry, NDT inspections are utilized throughout a facility’s life cycle. This cradle-to-grave approach is an important element of asset integrity management. Furthermore, NDT inspections provide historical data about the facility’s process units and provide information on how often a component should be inspected, repaired, or replaced. Inspection intervals and tests may be changed depending on where the equipment is in its life-cycle (e.g. newly manufactured equipment vs. aging equipment). Performing multiple assessments throughout the equipment’s life cycle may seem expensive. However, inspections conducted at specific intervals may end up saving an organization millions of dollars if testing reveals threats and equipment is repaired before shutting down the facility or experiencing a catastrophic failure.

The most common pieces of equipment that undergo inspection in the petrochemical industry are storage tanks, heat exchangers, pressure vessels, and piping systems. When planning an NDT inspection, there are four considerations one should account for:

• The type of damage mechanism to be inspected for
• The minimum detectable flaw size, shape, and orientation of the defect
• Where the defect is located (surface or internal)
• The sensitivities and limitations of the NDT method

With the above factors considered, operators can optimize facility production and increase personnel and environmental safety.

PROMAG’s non-destructive testing (NDT) products, equipment and services are utilized across all industry sectors such as:

• Militarily & Air-force
• Aerospace (MRO/Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul and MFG/Manufacturing)
• Automotive & Heavy-motor (safety part and component)
• Steel Mill
• Railroad & Transportation
• Oil&Gas
• Utility & Power-generation & Wind-power
• Medical
• 3D scanning and printing and imaging
• Marine
• Training, Lab. & third party

It includes inspection of both metallic and non-metallic (polymer and composite) components and structures.