Weld Inspection

Welds can be found in most industries on pipes, pipelines, tanks and vessels and must be regularly inspected to maintain their quality and integrity. Often a distinction is made between pipe welding and pipeline welding, with pipe welding relating to metal pipes at nuclear and power generation plants and oil refineries and pipeline welding referring to pipelines used to transport gas, oil, water and other liquids over distances on land and sub-sea.

Ultrasonic inspection can be used to detect surface flaws, such as cracks and seams and internal flaws such as voids, lack of fusion, inclusions of foreign material and changes in density, which can all lead to failure. Ultrasonic inspection is a volumetric NDT method and will provide an insight into the size, shape, exact position, and nature of a discontinuity in a weld.