Non-destructive testing is an integral part of Quest Reliability’s consulting practice, and is the main business of our sister company Quest TruTec. While both Quest companies are well-versed in conventional NDT techniques (visual inspection, standard ultrasonics, radiography, penetrants), they have gained a strong industry reputation for bringing a broad array of specialty NDT tools and services to bear on our customers’ inspection and condition assessment needs. The Quest NDT technologies are innovative (developed in our own laboratories) and are used in applications that would limit or disallow the use of many standard techniques. In addition to our unique technologies, Quest also offers evaluation and assessment services, drawing on the expertise of our structural integrity engineers and metallurgists, as well as our NDT laboratory staff.
Quest Reliability performs specialty NDT on many types of equipment and materials, but has a notable depth of experience in the following three asset types:
Specialty NDT services encompass three phases of work:
- Testing: Using tools that we have for the most part developed and built in our laboratories, we provide specialty testing capabilities, including:
- Portable advanced UT (FTIS™),
- Portable phased array UT,
- Portable time of flight diffraction (ToFD)
- Portable UT for oxide measurements
- Portable HTHA detection (advance backscatter UT).
- On-line elevated temperature UT inspection (up to 300°C)
- Portable magneto-optical imaging (MOI™),
- Portable magnetic flux measurement,
- Portable induction thermography (ITS™),
- Semi-portable infrared thermography (furnace cameras), and
- Portable laser profilometry of tubes, piping, vessels and tanks (LOTIS®, LaserScan™/Video)
- Portable overhead transmission line conductor condition assessment tool (LineCrawler™)
- Carburization detection tool
- Advanced ultrasonic testing methods.
- Evaluation: Anomalies that appear as “indications”[1] in the raw NDT results require interpretation to determine whether the raw data suggest a flaw, and further evaluation to determine whether the flaw is serious enough to classify it as a rejectable defect. Interpretation and evaluation may require the expertise of fracture mechanics experts, metallurgists or material scientists. In many cases these tasks require detailed study of flaws using flaw assessment techniques practiced by structural integrity engineers aided by finite element analysis programs and other specialty software. The flaw assessments are carried out in accordance with published standards and codes of practice such as API 579-1 or BS 7910. The structural integrity and materials engineering groups of Quest Reliability are comprised of skilled and experienced practitioners in precisely the disciplines needed to provide insightful evaluation of NDT data. Our team’s experience includes evaluation of NDT data acquired in the field and in the lab, for a broad variety of assets, structures and objects, concerning all conventional and many unconventional damage mechanisms and processes.
- Assessment: Quest uses “NDT assessment” to mean consideration of the results of NDT evaluation relative to standards, performance criteria, and the adequacy of inspection and maintenance procedures and protocols for the assets in question. Whereas “evaluation” focuses on the flaws, “assessment” focuses on the serviceability of the asset. Quest’s primary resources for assessment include our:
These experts are backed up by our multi-disciplinary staff with expertise in materials science, metallurgy, materials engineering, NDT technology, statistics and computational mechanics.
[1] The terms “indications, interpretation, evaluation, flaw and defect” are used here in accordance with their definitions in ASTM E 1316, “NDT Terminology.”