Nondestructive Testing: Necessary Evil or Benefit?

by F. H. Dijkstra* and J. A. de Raad**

The paper first appeared in Insight, the journal of the British Institute of Non-Destructive
Testing,
July 2002, and appears here with the permission of the publisher and the authors.

Many industries have recognized the importance of using NDT in

plant maintenance, quality control and safety. However, some
industries are curtailing their NDT activities to cut costs. The
authors of this article present various case studies to highlight the
additional benefits of using NDT not only as a maintenance and
prevention tool but also as a cost reducing operation. Readers of
this article may also get to know the NDT operations being
implemented in the Netherlands.
G.P Singh
Associate Technical Editor

Introduction

After several decades of application, the welding industry has completely accepted
standard nondestructive testing (NDT) as an inevitable but invaluable part of the
production and maintenance of components. Its application has been well regulated,
acceptance criteria for weld discontinuities exist, good schemes for personnel
qualification are in place and equipment has evolved to a standard approaching
perfection. NDT has become a commodity and the pioneering years are over. However,
such a situation implies risk. Industry tends to cut costs on commodities such as NDT,
especially when they are needed because they are mandated by codes. This creates
market conditions under which prices for NDT services are under pressure and
competition is heavy.

odern NDT methods are becoming ever more quantitative and

nonintrusive.

The field of NDT suffers from a problem regarding perception: NDT is seen, at best in
some cases, as a necessary evil. This perception hurts the industry and impedes
progress in technological development. This paper will highlight some of the ways in
which this perception can be transformed and NDT can be rightfully recognized as
being of added value to the user. This requires a change in perspective from seeing
NDT as an activity that has to be done because it is required by code to seeing it as a
solution to a problem, a solution which can improve safety, enhance quality and save
money. Examples given will cover maintenance testing, such as corrosion detection in
piping and tanks, as well as routine weld testing. The need for acceptance criteria
adapted for modern NDT techniques for weld discontinuities will be highlighted because
these form (in many cases) a key to the benefit. Last but not least, new methods will be
discussed which contribute to NDT being a benefit.

Ordinary Maintenance, Extraordinary NDT

NDT in its present form has been carried out for decades by specialized service
companies. The welding industry is an example of an industry which would not have
experienced the growth and wide range of applications it has today if there were no
such thing as NDT. NDT has a very important formal status and is part of legislation.
Requirements for the performance of NDT, acceptance criteria and requirements for
personnel qualification are implemented in codes and standards. The NDT procedure is
part of the contract. During the many years that NDT methods have been used in the
welding industry, a well established situation has evolved which enables the use of NDT
for the testing of welds against good workmanship criteria on a routine basis, thus
maintaining workmanship standards and minimizing the risks of component failure. In
addition, NDT plays an important part in industrial maintenance. During plant
shutdowns, for instance, many thousands of ultrasonic wall thickness measurements
are taken on piping, vessels and furnace tubes. All of these thickness readings have to
go into extensive databases, a process which is, thanks to modern computers and data
loggers, increasingly automated.
The NDT field can be seen as having achieved a sort of equilibrium, with its established
methods, acceptance criteria, procedures and personnel qualification schemes all
carefully laid out and standardized. This equilibrium does not mean, however, that all is
perfect - things could be improved and are improving. During the 1970s and 1980s,
Commission V of the International Institute of Welding tried to establish procedures that
were based on fitness for purpose considerations. The ultimate aim was to find a way to
accept and reject weld discontinuities on the basis of their significance for weld integrity.
In conventional NDT, we base our judgment on density differences on a film or on echo
amplitudes on a screen. These are parameters that have very little to do with the
significance of discontinuities for weld integrity. Density and amplitude are, first of all,
used for the detection of a discontinuity and are seldom a direct measure of its

significance. Therefore, it would be highly beneficial to industry if unnecessary repairs

could be eliminated by discontinuity rejection based on significance, using international
acceptance criteria.
In maintenance practice, we base our decisions on NDT that, until recently, was usually
performed during shutdowns. A significant amount of money could be saved if we had
NDT methods that minimized the time required for the shutdown or which, a step
further, avoid it by performing tests onstream. Increased knowledge on plant
degradation and the availability of recently introduced onstream, noninvasive NDT
techniques permit the application of risk based testing philosophies. Risk based and
inherent testing efficiency lead to the intended cost reduction without sacrificing safety.

Role of NDT in New Construction

Considering the emphasis on good workmanship evaluation with NDT and using
acceptance criteria as they have been formulated over the years, it is probably fair to
say that NDT as it is practiced is designed more to monitor welder performance rather
than to test weld integrity. This is in agreement with the term "good workmanship."
Generally, the tools available to perform this monitoring task were conventional NDT
methods. Most existing good workmanship criteria were formulated in the past with the
specific capabilities and drawbacks of these methods in mind.
Radiography, for instance, has excellent capabilities in detecting voluminous
discontinuities such as slag and porosity and can provide information on discontinuity
type and length. On the other hand, it is known that its capabilities are limited when it
comes to the detection of planar discontinuities such as lack of fusion and cracks. Even
when a discontinuity has been detected, radiography is hardly capable of establishing a
through thickness measurement of planar discontinuities. Manual ultrasonic testing, in
turn, is better at detecting planar discontinuities but is limited in the detection of
voluminous discontinuities and discontinuity characterization. It is also subjective. The
estimation of the through thickness extent of planar discontinuities is also limited.
Planar discontinuities, especially if interpreted as cracks, are deemed unacceptable in
many codes. Although this may be understandable from the point of view of fracture
mechanics, this is not the only reason they are deemed unacceptable. The presence of
planar discontinuities goes beyond workmanship evaluation - they might influence weld
integrity. In addition, conventional NDT methods have their limitations that urge code
writers to reject planar discontinuities in general. Their detection indicates that
something is very wrong with the weld, without being able to exactly quantify the
severity of the discontinuity. It may, therefore, be argued that the merit of conventional
NDT, using existing acceptance criteria, is limited to testing the welder's performance
because this has always been the best that was possible.

Back to the Beginning

Although the present good workmanship approach actually gives conventional NDT
methods the credit they deserve (their capabilities are well used), there should,
nevertheless, be a certainty beyond reasonable doubt that an accepted weld is fit for
service. Many years of industrial experience have demonstrated that this certainty
statistically exists. We are not doing things completely wrong. However, there is a price
to be paid. Good workmanship acceptance criteria for conventional techniques must, to
a certain extent, be conservative in order to compensate for the inherent limitations of
conventional NDT; unfortunately, the degree of conservatism is more or less unknown.
Very probably, this conservatism has caused unnecessary repairs. Therefore, the
question can be asked: if the historical background of present NDT practices did not
exist, what would we like to know today about a weld to be able to accept or reject it?
In an ideal situation, we would like to have a balanced combination of an evaluation of
the welder's performance on one hand and a fracture mechanics analysis on the other,
in terms of being certain that a discontinuity with dimensions exceeding a certain critical
value is not present. The second aspect could be regarded as a safety net with a
balanced conservatism.
This not only requires the use of modified criteria, but also requires the use of NDT
techniques that can provide the necessary information. They should be able to detect
small discontinuities for testing weld quality as well as estimate the through thickness
extent of planar discontinuities, if present, with a high reliability (probability of detection
[POD]). On the other hand, a low false call rate is required in order to be commercially
viable. It is also important that the methods used provide unambiguous information to
avoid interpretation uncertainties and discussions. Criteria should therefore be
formulated in such a way that full advantage of the capabilities of the NDT method is
taken, without leading to unnecessarily high repair rates. It is the compatibility between
the NDT technique and the criteria that counts - a balanced combination of certainty and
a degree of conservatism not higher than needed. For many years, the technical
capabilities of standard NDT methods did not allow for this approach. If NDT would have
produced quantitative data on discontinuity size from the beginning, it is highly probable
that current acceptance criteria for weld discontinuities would have used this
information. Acceptance criteria would have been completely different from what they
are now. Contemplating the current situation, the criteria would probably only reject a
certain number of voluminous imperfections such as porosity clusters (because these
indicate insufficient workmanship) and they would reject planar and sharp
discontinuities exceeding a certain through thickness height and length.
In fact, one would expect that, if an NDT method were introduced that could provide
these quantitative data, a revolution in industry would be triggered because it would
provide the opportunity to develop tailor made acceptance criteria. It is possible that
criteria for general purpose applications would statistically lead to repair rates similar to
the numbers we know from radiography and ultrasonic testing or slightly lower; thence,
it is possible that more planar discontinuities and fewer voluminous indications would
lead to rejection than is the case now, which is favorable for weld integrity. To be frank, a

repair does not necessarily improve weld strength. On the contrary, repair can reduce
local material properties.
For specific applications where more details about material properties and service
parameters are known, adequate criteria could lead to significantly lower repair rates
while maintaining existing safety standards. Unfortunately, although such methods have
become available - such as the time of flight diffraction technique - this revolution has
not happened yet. It is understood that industry and, particularly, authorities are hesitant
to replace well known and legislated procedures by modern technology without
thorough and time consuming validation programs. But fortunately, there is some
progress. However slowly, one can observe a painstaking process towards quantitative
NDT in combination with adapted acceptance criteria for weld discontinuities. This was
made possible through the introduction of time of flight diffraction, which combines a
high POD with a low false call rate and is capable of providing data in a discontinuity's
through thickness height (Dijkstra et al., 1996). Figure 1 shows a time of flight diffraction
image with a discontinuity indication containing through thickness information. General
purpose criteria for time of flight diffraction have been developed for this purpose in the
Netherlands in a joint industry project published by the Dutch Society for Quality
Surveillance, Inspection and Nondestructive Testing (KINT, 1998). Almost
simultaneously, similar activities in Europe have resulted in provisional standards (CEN,
2000). Another international joint industry project under the auspices of the International
Pipe Line and Offshore Contractors Association (IPLOCA) initiated the development of
specific criteria for pipeline welds, for weld discontinuities detected with a combination
of automated ultrasonic testing and time of flight diffraction (Dijkstra and de Raad, 1997;
Frli, 1997; Frli et al., 1998; IPLOCA, 2000).

Figure 1 - A typical time of flight diffraction image, clearly showing the signal from a
discontinuity and including through thickness information.
Maybe we should regard the efforts of Commission V of the International Institute of
Welding to establish fitness for purpose approaches in the 1970s and 1980s as being
far ahead of their time. Fitness for purpose criteria cannot exist in combination with NDT
methods that simply do not provide the necessary information. Nowadays, however, we
are in a much more comfortable situation.

Role of NDT during Construction

An example illustrating the benefit of NDT is the application of automated ultrasonic
testing systems to test girth welds during pipeline construction. Such systems are most
often combined with automated welding and increasingly replace radiography (Dijkstra
et al., 2000). Most automated ultrasonic testing systems nowadays include a time of
flight diffraction facility not only to assist in estimating the size of a discontinuity, but also
to function as a safety net for the detection of discontinuities which have an orientation
unlikely to be detected through traditional pulse echo systems. This increases POD to
an almost ideal level. The economical benefit of these systems is found in their high
testing speed (compared to radiographic testing) and also in the results, which are
instantly available for direct feedback to the welders.
This is best illustrated during pipeline construction at a lay barge. Until the introduction
of automated ultrasonic testing, the radiographic testing station was the slowest phase
in the whole production process and, therefore, dictated the speed of construction.
Automated ultrasonic testing systems made it possible to operate at elevated
temperatures (as shown in Figure 2) and the overall speed of the construction could be
increased considerably, resulting in a reduction of expensive offshore days.

Figure 2 - An automated ultrasonic testing system in use at lay barge construction on a

small diameter pipeline.

Role of NDT in Maintenance

Maintenance schemes and standards, most often regulated by legislation, require
defined intervals between shutdowns for invasive tests. During a shutdown, the
installation is opened and tested. This is usually the moment that the plant owner
discovers that the installation has been opened too early or, worse, too late. Risk based
inspection and other similar approaches are, therefore, considered more and more in
order to rationalize the periods between shutdowns and base these on the actual and
anticipated plant condition.
By studying modern approaches for such schemes, one can see that knowledge of
operational conditions and potential degradation mechanisms play a prominent role.
Surprisingly, the role of NDT is often limited to the use of conventional methods such as
ultrasonic wall thickness measurements, ultrasonic testing, radiographic testing and,
last but not least, visual testing. However, this situation is changing. Because a number
of novel noninvasive NDT screening techniques are now becoming available, both
industry and the authorities have an open mind to apply these. With the introduction of
some of these techniques, the time required for a shutdown can be reduced when

suitable to perform tests while the installation is in full service. It is obvious that the
availability of such onstream NDT techniques could support the knowledge already
available on operational parameters and degradation mechanisms in order to base
shutdown intervals on the actual plant condition.
One of the techniques capable of onstream use is the pulsed eddy current technique
(Stalenhoef and de Raad, 2000). The system is able to detect corrosion in piping and
vessels through a thermal insulation layer (Figure 3). It can cope with a maximum
insulation thickness of at least 0.1 m (4 in.). The application of this system eliminates
the need for removal and replacement of insulation and hence is time and cost effective.
The principle of pulsed eddy currents is illustrated in Figure 4. In fact, the system
averages thickness of the component over the size of the footprint generated by the
eddy current field. The diameter of this footprint is roughly equal to the insulation
thickness, but with a minimum footprint size of 32 mm (1.3 in.) with the sensor in direct
contact with the component. Work is in progress to further reduce the diameter of the
footprint. The method was first developed and patented in the US and is now being
commercialized and extensively validated for a number of applications. The temperature
of the component under the insulation can be between 173 and 773 K (-148 to 932 F),
thus covering almost all temperatures as they exist in plants. Moreover, the method can
be used in contact on rough and corroded surfaces without prior cleaning.

Figure 3 - A pulsed eddy current system on a thermally insulated pipe.

Figure 4 - A schematic of the pulsed eddy current system.

A system is in use in a North American power plant that detects flow accelerated
corrosion in the elbows of pipes, in which insulation is under a corrugated sheeting. This
application eliminates a lot of insulation work. Moreover, repair actions could be planned
prior to a shut down, which is altogether a considerable cost savings for the plant owner.
Another noninvasive technique to be mentioned here is long range ultrasonic testing,
which is capable of transmitting and receiving some types of plate waves over an
extended range. Up to 1 m (39 in.) distance can be achieved, but the effective range is
strongly dependent on the surface condition at either side of the component. The
method, which is illustrated schematically in Figure 5, can be used for corrosion
detection of annular plates in oil storage tanks. Since the annular plate is considered a
critical part of the tank construction and the tank does not need to be taken out of
service nor cleaned for this testing, this technique is also a potential money saver.

Figure 5 - A schematic diagram of long range ultrasonic testing on a tank bottom.

Similar techniques such as long range ultrasonic testing with ultralong ranges up to 20
m (66 ft) are now quickly entering the market. They fulfill a great demand. These guided
wave systems make use of lamb waves generated by a circumferential array of
ultrasonic probes (Lowe et al., 1998). Particularly in pipes where there is no geometric
divergence and thus low attenuation, long distances can be tested from one probe ring
position. Each measurement takes 300 to 900 s per location. Typical applications are
testing pipe crossings underneath roads and other short pipe lengths on pipe sleepers
which are unable to be pigged. The pipe under the road is not at all accessible for any
NDT method to establish its condition unless some kind of pigging is applied, which is
not only considered overkill but is also intrusive and expensive. Indeed, guided waves
are considered a great money saver (Wassink et al., 2001).

Another testing technique, which is not new but rather has been used for some decades
now in intelligent pigs for gas transport pipelines all over the world, is the magnetic flux
leakage method (Stalenhoef and de Raad, 2000). Metal loss is detected because it
generates a weak leakage field in a magnetically saturated steel pipe or vessel wall.
This leakage field is picked up by hall sensors and electronically processed and
displayed. The magnetic flux leakage technique was also the first choice, developed
and applied for testing of oil storage tank floors almost a decade ago. This testing
system was developed in the United Kingdom and now is a worldwide commodity. The
nonintrusive spin off applications are just as valuable: quick corrosion detection in pipe
and vessel walls while onstream as a screening method to find suspect spots and mark
those for further testing. Figure 6 illustrates hundreds of kilometers of unburied thin wall
crude oil flow lines in the desert, which are screened for the presence of random
corrosion.

Figure 6 - Flow line testing in the desert with magnetic flux leakage; hundreds of
kilometers of pipeline can be accurately tested.
A kind of derivative of magnetic flux leakage is the improved magnetic flux leakage
technique, also known as the saturation low frequency eddy current technique (de Raad
et al., 2002). This new method is able to be applied up to 32 mm (1.3 in.), as opposed to
magnetic flux leakage which is limited to 10 mm (0.4 in.). The principle is schematically
illustrated in Figure 7. Similar to the magnetic flux leakage method, a considerable level
of magnetization is applied. With this improved magnetic flux leakage, local flux
distortions caused by discontinuities are picked up by eddy current sensors; these
sensors are much more sensitive than the hall sensors used with traditional magnetic
flux leakage testing (de Raad et al., 2002).

Figure 7 - The principle behind the saturation low frequency eddy current technique.
The recent availability of the improved magnetic flux leakage technique created a
solution for long wanted noninvasive screening tools which are able to test thick wall
pipes from the outside while onstream. Scanning for local but random corrosion with
conventional techniques used previously is slow and expensive and the POD of an
isolated corrosion spot is also low compared to screening with the improved magnetic
flux leakage technique. Moreover, radiographic testing is not attractive for offshore
applications due to the safety hazards. Figure 8 shows a pipe scanning system on a
platform to detect random but local biological corrosion in a thick wall flow line with a
surface temperature of up to 373 K (212 F). This case also illustrates the high efficiency
of this method - circumferential screening of 6 m (19.7 ft) of pipe was completed in 1 h,
which otherwise would have taken days with conventional NDT methods (de Raad et
al., 2002).

Figure 8 - A pipe scanner in use on thick wall pipeline offshore flow lines.

Anticipated Benefits
Once techniques such as those described above come into existence and enter the
market, it is not too difficult to realize what other applications could benefit from them.
Pulsed eddy current systems, for instance, cannot only measure through insulation,
but also in direct contact. This makes it a method for wall thickness measurements,
replacing ultrasonic testing on furnace tubing and dispensing with the need for
extensive and time consuming cleaning of such scaled or encrusted tubing during a
shutdown. The same advantages apply for underwater steel structures, where divers
can measure at any location because no prior thorough cleaning is necessary as is
needed for ultrasonic testing.
Long range ultrasonic testing is also used for testing of piping that has been on
nonwelded supports or sleepers for some time, to see whether corrosion has developed
at the contact points. The technique can also be used for corrosion detection under
insulation, nozzle reinforcement pads or crack detection in suspension systems for
railway cars.
Guided waves can be used for pipes on a jetty, which are hard to test by any other
NDT method. These pipes can now be tested in long sections at a time, which helps

make testing affordable.

As illustrated, magnetic flux leakage has been used for the testing of hundreds of
kilometers of piping in the desert, where a testing rate of 1 km (0.6 mi) per day is easily
achieved - a rate far greater than that achievable through conventional wall thickness
measurements.
Improved magnetic flux leakage has proven its capabilities on thick wall components
and, almost in parallel with the development of pipe scanners, was chosen to build
systems for testing of extremely thick storage tank floors of 20 mm (0.8 in.) or more.
Such systems are also suitable to test tank floors with a normal thickness of 6 or 7 mm
(0.24 to 0.27 in.) but with extremely thick coatings of up to 10 mm (0.4 in.), as is noted
by de Raad et al. (2002).
These are just a few examples, but there are many more. At the moment, joint industry
projects are just being completed or are under way to identify and validate NDT
methods for certain applications and to optimize them where necessary. In particular,
the finished project "Non-invasive Inspection within an Asset Risk Management
Strategy" (funded by EC-THERMIE - a European community sponsored program) and
its successor, "Recommended Practice for Non-intrusive Inspection," funded by
industry, are good examples of such joint industry projects. These activities represent
the current trend towards onstream, noninvasive testing in combination with risk based
inspection philosophies to establish a component condition. In these projects, industry
and authorities participate in aiming at a beneficial use of today's NDT without
sacrificing safety.
OPTIMISE, another joint industry project recently completed (supported by EC-ESPRIT
funding), is a project where NDT techniques are identified, optimized and validated for
the testing of bulk carriers, with the aim to increase the testing scope and thus the
safety level, while at the same time reducing the time needed for the tests. Figure 9
shows a specialized magnetic crawler with an extremely high payload to carry NDT
tools (developed as part of this joint industry project) which is able to negotiate sharp
corners, run across corrugated bulkheads and work overhead. Such a device with a
long umbilical could carry a closed circuit TV set and other NDT devices, even during
the voyage of the ship, to establish hull and bulkhead conditions. Alternatively, the ship
needs to be in the harbor in order to use scaffolding or cherry pickers, unless using
expensive abseil techniques. However, particularly in the traditional marine industry, old
habits die hard; international rules which have been laboriously agreed upon in the past
have to be changed. National interests hamper quick introduction of such new
techniques even when they are better and lead to increased safety.

Figure 9 - A magnetic crawler with high payload for NDT missions.

Conclusion
Modern NDT methods for new construction and maintenance tests are becoming ever
more quantitative and nonintrusive. For NDT of new construction, this implies that the
more one knows about the material properties and operational conditions, the better the
acceptance criteria for weld discontinuities can be based on the required weld integrity
and can be fine tuned to a specific application. In the pipeline construction industry, this
is already happening. In plant maintenance, the availability of quantitative and
noninvasive screening of NDT methods will reduce the time needed for shutdowns and
increase the intervals between them. Modern NDT methods will become just as
important a tool for risk based inspection approaches and maintenance planning as
operational parameters and degradation mechanisms already are. In both of these NDT
application fields, these tendencies can lead to rationalization, with cost reduction as a
result, while maintaining or even improving existing safety levels. In this way, NDT can
cease to be seen as a necessary evil and become clearly seen as a benefit.

Acknowledgments
This paper is an update of a plenary lecture given by Frits H. Dijkstra at the Seventh
European Conference on Non-Destructive Testing in Copenhagen, Denmark, in May
1998.