Joe Baldauff

Drilling for oil and gas has changed over the years. The locations are more remote, the distances are greater, and the wells are deeper than ever before. For tube and pipe producers involved in this international market, accurate and reliable nondestructive testing is a requirement.

NDT systems are limited in how close to the end of a tube or pipe they can test successfully. They rely on electromagnetic or ultrasonic waves to flow through the tube or pipe, and the end represents an abrupt change in the wall’s characteristics, making the test results difficult to interpret near the pipe or tube end. A new system overcomes the conventional obstacles by aiming clockwise, counterclockwise, and transverse transducers at a single point of entry. A timed delay based on the 1-kHz transmit frequency prevents the signals from interfering with each other, enabling the receiver to interpret the results accurately.