Quest Reliability can apply a number of specialty NDT tools to high energy (high temperature and high pressure steam) piping in power plants.  Piping systems in power plants can include large diameter (e.g., 1m) main steam and reheat steam pipes.  Degradation problems in high energy piping are mainly creep and/or creep fatigue damage.  However, areas such as the desuperheaters of high energy piping can suffer thermal fatigue cracking to which specialty techniques can be applied.  Many of the damage mechanisms occurring in steam pipe are found beneath the external surfaces; such damage mechanisms are best detected using ultrasonic methods.  In particular seam welded pipe is known to be susceptible to creep damage at specific subsurface zones.

Quest Reliability performs exterior examination of high energy piping, and detection of incipient creep damage, manufacturing flaws and fatigue-related cracking using ultrasonic methods, either time-of-flight diffraction (TOFD) and/or phased array advanced ultrasonics.  Phased array and ToFD data can be collected simultaneously and linked to provide reliable detection and accurate analysis/sizing capability.  It is a fast semi-automated technique applicable to accessible, uncovered pipe.

The specialty NDT techniques described here for high energy piping provide data for a suite of analytical and numerical solutions, performed manually or in the context of our proprietary fitness-for-service (FFS) and finite-element-analysis (FEA) software, or our LifeQuest™ line of life management and remaining life assessment products.

For further information about High Energy Piping, please contact us.