Image Expanding competencies in Industrial Diagnostics
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Steel products must meet a number of requirements in order to withstand extremely high loads. In order to deliver the best quality, suitable inspection solutions for industrial products must be readily available.

ROSEN experts have been successfully applying proven technology to solutions for the steel, pipe and railway industries since 2014. Eddy current testing (ECT) has now joined the list of proven technologies successfully implemented into solutions for industrial diagnostics. Other technologies include conventional and phased array ultrasonic inspection methods (UT), electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMAT), and magnetic flux leakage (MFL). ECT plays a unique and instrumental role in automated inspection, as it is an electromagnetic method for non-destructive testing of electrically conductive materials.

Eddy Current for Automated Inspection

During an eddy current inspection, an alternating magnetic field is generated, inducing eddy currents in the test specimen, which depend on the material properties. The interaction with possible inhomogeneities or overall material properties is measured by sensors evaluating the eddy current density accordingly.

Typical applications of eddy current testing technology are crack testing, layer thickness measurement or sorting and microstructure testing. Typical applied in the aerospace industry, automotive industry, it can be used as quality control of safety-critical components, to prevent future damage. It is often combined with ultrasound and other volumetric methods as a surface inspection method to enable a fast and complete inspection of the products.

Hard Spot Detection

A relatively new field of application is the testing for so-called “hard spots” of heavy plates for line pipe applications in rolling mills. Such surface areas with a greatly increased hardness can lead to mechanical failure at high loads, due to the formation of cracks in the material. In addition, hard spots can be the source of corrosion, which can also lead to premature failure of the resulting pipeline. This is especially true for sour gas pipelines where an extremely corrosive medium is transported.

Strengthening Integration Processes

The integration process of the inspection systems into existing production facilities is a critical step. Detection of features on steel products must occur at the earliest possible production process. To further strengthen this competency, the ROSEN Group welcomes two well-known experts in the field of eddy current technology who have extensive experience in the industry.

With the introduction of eddy current testing into its industrial diagnostics portfolio, the ROSEN Group aims to offer the steel, pipe and railway industries solutions for surface testing and material characterization, thus guaranteeing an optimal and future-proof one-stop solution for customers' quality requirements.