GE Inspection Technologies Xray

Radioscopic Systems
for Large Pipe Inspection
Filmless Xray Inspection of large pipes
Turnkey solutions for longitudinal and spiral-welded pipes
Operation with Image Intensier / Flat Panel Detector
Wall thickness up to 50 mm
Pipe length up to 18 m
Weight up to 50 tons
Worldwide project management and eld service
GE Inspection Technologies
tor of 2. Therefore the weld must be
placed in the middle between X-ray
tube and Image Intensier. Beside the
geometric enlargement the geometric
unsharpness will also increase which
set the need for using X-ray tubes with
small focal spot. In combination with
an Image Intensier and geometric
magnication of 2 a focal spot size of
1 mm (acc. to EN 12543) or even
smaller (e.g. 0.5 mm) will lead to opti-
mal results. These particular unipolar X-
ray tubes are only available up to
X-ray energies of 225 kV which limits
the penetrable wall thickness range.
Most practical solutions for the inspec-
tion of large pipes using Image Intensi-
ers place the bulky Intensier outside
the pipe. The X-ray tube is placed on an
outrigger and moving parallel to the Im-
age Intensier.
With this system set-up we achieve a
geometrical resolution and detail sensi-
tivity which satises the usual national
and international standards (e.g.
EN 13068). Because of these special
set-up the weld inspection applications
are limited to a wall thickness of
25 mm - 30 mm at the moment.
the smallest details. To fulll all these
requirement various systems set-ups
are available using Image Intensiers or
Flat Panel Detectors (FPD).
An examination of an item in motion is
hence generally not possible because
the signal-to-noise ratio often must be
improved using digital image process-
ing to integrate the stationary image.
In economic terms, radioscopic exami-
nations perform very well compared to
radiography because there are no lm
or lm processing and/or development
costs.
Radioscopic Weld Inspection
Most of the currently installed solutions
are working with Image Intensiers.
Reasons for that are a good cost/bene-
t ratio and the non-availability of FPD
with a sufcient lifetime in the past.
To full the high requirements of weld
inspection radioscopic systems, Im-
age Intensiers must be operated very
close to the limits of the detector. An
Image Intensier with an input screen
of 9"/ 215 mm must be used with re-
duced size of the input screen. This so-
called electronic zoom reduces the in-
put screen to a size of 130 mm to en-
large small details. The inherent un-
sharpness of a zoomed image intensier
is approximately 0.3 mm. In this case it
makes an additional geometric enlarge-
ment necessary.
Furthermore the geometric magnica-
tion of the system must be set to a fac-
The discovery of small and smallest de-
fects (e.g. pores) is a key quality cri-
teria for a good weld examination. To
make it even more complex these com-
ponents are mostly at (with the excep-
tion of the so-called weld elevation). For
radioscopic systems, these constraints
translate into highest requirements for
the spatial resolution. The imaging sys-
tem must be able to transmit even weak
contrasts, too. This requires a high con-
trast sensitivity, which is normally test-
ed using image quality indicators (IQI).
In addition to the good contrast sensi-
tivity, the signal-to-noise ratio must be
high in order to be able to assess even
Weld Inspection with Image Intensiers
Xray
The use of a high resolving Flat Pan-
el Detector enable new solutions for the
lmless X-ray inspection of large pipes
and offer several benets in comparison
to systems with Image Intensiers:
Higher robustness
Smaller dimensions
Suitable for inspection of welds up to
50 mm thickness
Higher resolution
Longer inspection area per exposure
(up to 160 mm)
Different types of FPDs are available to
cover the individual requirements of the
specic inspection tasks.
sensitivity can be again achieved which
satises the usual national and interna-
tional standards (e.g. EN 13068).
The advantage of a higher length of
the weld under test can lead to a much
more efcient inspection. The Image
Intensier set-up allows the inspection
of roughly 45 mm - 50 mm weld re-
spectively 64 mm using the diagonal of
the monitor. The use of an adequate at
panel detector with small pixel pitch al-
lows the inspection of up to 160 mm !
Now the detector can be placed on the
outrigger inside and the X-ray tube out-
side the pipe. This makes it much eas-
ier to use bipolar X-ray tubes for ener-
gies up to e.g. 320 kV or even more.
Due to the small pixel pitch of particu-
lar detectors (e.g. 127 m or less) the
geometrical magnication can be re-
duced. The usual magnication used is
between 1.2 up to 1.4. Consequently
the requirements to the focal spot size
of the X-ray tubes are more moderate
compared to an image intensier set-
up. Tubes with 1.8 mm spot size can be
used for geometric magnications up to
1.4. Under the described circumstanc-
es a geometrical resolution and detail
Weld Inspection with high resolving Flat Panel Detectors
X-ray tube
pipe
at panel detector
outrigger for FPD movement
GE Inspection Technologies Xray
GEInspectionTechnologies.com
- Image intensier
- Manually controlled
- Open X-ray protection room
- Collision protection
- Defect area marking
We reserve the right to technical modifications without prior notice. 2004 General Electric Company. All rights reserved.
GEIT-30019GB (3/04)
X-ray inspection of large pipes
- Programmable operation
- Up to 16 m pipe length
- Up to 28 tons weight
- Rectangular pipe loading / unloading
X-ray inspection of spiral-welded pipes
- Image intensier
- X-ray tube outrigger
- Slit diaphragm
What ever your inspection task requires we will have the right solution
Real-time X-ray imaging system with image enhancement