What Is NDT of Steel Pipes?
As a testing method widely used in the steel pipe industry, NDT is short for nondestructive testing. Today, we are going to introduce the application of NDT in the steel pipe industry to you.
In the early days, the term "nondestructive detecting" was widely used, and literally, it was limited to detecting defects that could not be observed by the human eyes without damaging the materials or the products. However in practical work, it was not only needed to find defects od steel pipes, but also to draw conclusions whether the steel pipes' materials or the steel pipes could be applied to certain conditions. Thus "nondestructive detecting" also played the role of testing and was gradually replaced by the term "nondestructive testing".
The term "nondestructive testing" developed on the basis of other terms such as "nondestructive detecting" and "nondestructive inspection". With the development of non-destructive testing technology, new equipment, technologies and methods continue to be used and the application of "nondestructive testing" has been far beyond detection and testing. Therefore, "nondestructive testing" is a generalized term at present.
NDT is a kind of detecting method referring to detecting whether the metal materials of steel pipes and steel pipes have any defects and the shapes, sizes, and development trends of the defects if there indeed exist some defects. NDT utilizes the theory that physical characteristics of metal materials of steel pipes and steel pipes will change due to the existence of defects, based on the premise of without damaging the metal materials and steel pipe products. Habitually, people call NDT "nondestructive detecting".
The Importance of NDT
One of the main purposes of NDT is to have real-time process quality control of steel pipes' raw materials, semi-finished steel pipe products, finished steel pipe products and steel pipes components for discontinuous processing like multi-process production or continuous processing like automated production lines. NDT is particularly used for controlling the metallurgical quality of steel pipes as well as production processes such as monitoring the defects' conditions, microstructures' status, coatings' thickness, etc. Meanwhile, the design and process sectors can get the feedback quality information through the testing, which help them to further improve the design and manufacturing process, ultimately improving the quality of steel pipes, reducing the amount of fewer inferior steel pipes and saving manufacturing costs.
There are many advantages of using NDT technology in the manufacturing process of steel pipes. NDT technology can help find a variety of defects in the original and manufacturing processes and then control accordingly to prevent unqualified raw materials and semi-finished steel pipes from entering the next process, which further helps to avoid waste of the man-hour, manpower, raw material and energy, improve design and process as well as reduce the amount of inferior steel pipes.
Furthermore, NDT technology also can help control the quality of steel pipes' materials as well as steel pipes within the appropriate performance requirement scopes based on the acceptance criteria to avoid the so-called "excess quality" resulted from limitlessly improving the quality of steel pipes. Through utilizing NDT technology, the location of defects can be determined, which makes it possible to make full use of certain steel pipes' materials or semi-finished steel pipe products with defects with the premise of not affecting the design performance. It is good for improving the utilization of materials and gaining good economic benefits.
Therefore, NDT technology plays an important role in reducing manufacturing costs, improving material utilization as well as production efficiency, and meeting both performance requirements and economic benefit requirements of steel pipes.
In the early days, the term "nondestructive detecting" was widely used, and literally, it was limited to detecting defects that could not be observed by the human eyes without damaging the materials or the products. However in practical work, it was not only needed to find defects od steel pipes, but also to draw conclusions whether the steel pipes' materials or the steel pipes could be applied to certain conditions. Thus "nondestructive detecting" also played the role of testing and was gradually replaced by the term "nondestructive testing".
The term "nondestructive testing" developed on the basis of other terms such as "nondestructive detecting" and "nondestructive inspection". With the development of non-destructive testing technology, new equipment, technologies and methods continue to be used and the application of "nondestructive testing" has been far beyond detection and testing. Therefore, "nondestructive testing" is a generalized term at present.
NDT is a kind of detecting method referring to detecting whether the metal materials of steel pipes and steel pipes have any defects and the shapes, sizes, and development trends of the defects if there indeed exist some defects. NDT utilizes the theory that physical characteristics of metal materials of steel pipes and steel pipes will change due to the existence of defects, based on the premise of without damaging the metal materials and steel pipe products. Habitually, people call NDT "nondestructive detecting".
The Importance of NDT
One of the main purposes of NDT is to have real-time process quality control of steel pipes' raw materials, semi-finished steel pipe products, finished steel pipe products and steel pipes components for discontinuous processing like multi-process production or continuous processing like automated production lines. NDT is particularly used for controlling the metallurgical quality of steel pipes as well as production processes such as monitoring the defects' conditions, microstructures' status, coatings' thickness, etc. Meanwhile, the design and process sectors can get the feedback quality information through the testing, which help them to further improve the design and manufacturing process, ultimately improving the quality of steel pipes, reducing the amount of fewer inferior steel pipes and saving manufacturing costs.
There are many advantages of using NDT technology in the manufacturing process of steel pipes. NDT technology can help find a variety of defects in the original and manufacturing processes and then control accordingly to prevent unqualified raw materials and semi-finished steel pipes from entering the next process, which further helps to avoid waste of the man-hour, manpower, raw material and energy, improve design and process as well as reduce the amount of inferior steel pipes.
Furthermore, NDT technology also can help control the quality of steel pipes' materials as well as steel pipes within the appropriate performance requirement scopes based on the acceptance criteria to avoid the so-called "excess quality" resulted from limitlessly improving the quality of steel pipes. Through utilizing NDT technology, the location of defects can be determined, which makes it possible to make full use of certain steel pipes' materials or semi-finished steel pipe products with defects with the premise of not affecting the design performance. It is good for improving the utilization of materials and gaining good economic benefits.
Therefore, NDT technology plays an important role in reducing manufacturing costs, improving material utilization as well as production efficiency, and meeting both performance requirements and economic benefit requirements of steel pipes.
