Ultrasonic Testing in Opelousas, LA
Mayo Consulting Services is dedicated to improving manufacturing quality and product reliability. To make these improvements, components and structures are regularly inspected for discontinuities, defects, or faults which may reduce their structural integrity, thus leading to failure. Among the material testing methods developed for inspection purposes is nondestructive testing (NDT). This testing presents the advantages of leaving the components undamaged after inspection.
Our training facilities are equipped with modern NDT equipment, which makes it easy for us to perform liquid penetration tests, radiographic testing, magnetic particle testing, and ultrasonic testing in Opelousas, LA. Our team uses approved practices and procedures and is composed of qualified and certified NDT Level I and II technicians as well as in-house ASNT NDT III certified professionals, materials testing experts, and welding inspection and quality control personnel. This allows you to use our NDT services for:
- Weeding out defective raw materials and components at the incoming stage itself instead of accepting and paying for it.
- Detecting defects that may occur during the manufacturing process before spending time and money on further processing of the defective materials.
- Improving manufacturing techniques by inspecting the product during processing operations to maintain uniform quality and standards.
- Detecting discontinuities at final stages of manufacturing to improve product reliability and safety during operation.
- Providing in-service inspections to detect service-induced flaws.
- Ensuring the prevention of accidents and promoting safety for workers and equipment during overhauling and maintenance.
- Enhancing the reputation of manufacturer as producer of quality products.
Explaining Aerospace NDT
Nondestructive testing (NDT) is vital for ensuring the safety, quality, and integrity of critical aerospace components, assemblies, and structures during the manufacturing, overhaul, and maintenance inspections of aircrafts. The nondestructive testing, using liquid or dye penetrant testing, magnetic particle testing, ultrasonic testing, radiographic testing, x-ray inspections, and visual and borescope inspection methods of aerospace components and structures is carried out during various stages of manufacturing and maintenance. These inspections are based on the criticality of the components and specific aircraft structural quality requirements.
Eddy Current Testing
Eddy current testing is a modern nondestructive testing method that has become one of the prime tools for the quality control of products, materials, and structures at various stages of manufacturing and in-service inspections. These inspections can be used to find the finest surface and subsurface flaws in any conductive materials. Spectrums of quality control engineering applications are utilized by applying Eddy current principles.
The present Eddy current NDT method has applications in aerospace component inspections, heat exchanger tube inspections, and other critical engineering applications. These principles can be used for the following engineering applications:
- Material Sorting – Mix up of various grades of materials, either chemically different, varied in mechanical properties, or different in metallurgical structures, can be sorted using Eddy current testing equipment.
- Surface & Substance Flaw Detection in Conducting Materials – Detectable flaws include cracks, laminations, and other discontinuities that can be detrimental to the product’s performance.
Conductivity Testing for Metals
Accurate Measurement of Coating Thickness – The coating can be conductive or non-conductive with few limitations on the accuracy of the measurements.
Thickness Testing & Measurement – Eddy current testing allows for the testing of materials with especially low thicknesses, where there is a restriction on using Ultrasonic thickness gauging due to component configuration or the quantum of inspection. These inspections can either be contact or non-contact type tests.
Verifying the Integrity of Structures & Estimation of Corrosion Damages for Heat Exchanger Tubes – Routine in-service maintenance inspections using Eddy current techniques yield reliable data for analysis and condition monitoring of plants and structures.
Ultrasonic Testing
This is a nondestructive inspection method in which beams of high-frequency sound waves are introduced into the material being tested. These waves are then used to detect surface and sub-surface flaws. The sound waves travel through the materials with some attenuation of energy and are reflected at interfaces. The reflected beam is detected and analyzed to define the presence and location of flaws.
Ultrasonic waves are almost completely reflected at metal gas interfaces. Partial reflection occurs at metal liquid or metal solid interfaces. The specific percentage of reflected energy depends mainly on the ratios of certain properties of the matter on opposite sides of the interface.
Cracks, lamination's, shrinkage, cavities, bursts, flakes, pores, bonding faults, and other discontinuities that can act as metal-gas interfaces can be easily detected using this method. Inclusions and other inhomogeneities in the metal being inspected can also be detected by causing partial reflection or scattering of the ultrasonic waves, or by producing some other detectable effect on them.
About Hardness Tests
A problem with the tensile test is that the metal is destroyed by the test. Another test that characterizes the strength of a metal but does not destroy the metal is the hardness test. This test is used widely because it is quick and can be applied to parts that can then be placed into service.
A hard material, called the indenter, is forced into the metal surface with a fixed load (weight). The metal region located under the indenter point is deformed to strains well into the plastic region of the specimen, so that permanent deformation is generated, causing a crater (called an indent) to be left in the metal surface. The hardness is then defined by some number that is proportional to the size of the indent. In some techniques, the size of the indent is measured from its diameter, and in others, it is measured from the depth of the indent.
