BACKGROUND AND HISTORY OF GUIDED WAVE TESTING

Historical Timeline

1916: Horace Lamb, On Waves in Elastic Plates, then in 1917 in The Dynamical Theory of Sound. Identifies and describes ‘normal modes’ in
plates (later called Lamb waves).

1958: Gazis investigates 3D propagation characteristics of guided waves in cylinders and pipes.

1967: Viktorov presents extensive findings of using Lamb modes for NDT of other structures such as pipes.

Circa 1995: Mudge et al apply earlier research to the NDT of industrial pipelines using the L(0,2) wave mode.

1998: investigation into the use of the T(0,1) wave mode for NDT of pipelines.
Industrial Need
CORROSION IN PIPEWORK IS A GLOBAL PROBLEM.

MANY LINES ARE INSULATED OR OTHERWISE INACCESSIBLE.

COST OF ACCESS MAY EXCEED THE COST OF INSPECTION.

A HIGH PERCENTAGE OF PLANT INSPECTION COSTS RELATES TO PIPEWORK.

 Background – Origin of GWT

The original research and development was conducted by TWI (The Welding Institute) and Imperial College.
This research was furthered by way of a GSP (Group Sponsored Project) to develop a NDT technique with the
capability of detecting CUI (Corrosion Under Insulation). Shell, BP, ICI and Exxon were some of the sponsoring
organisations.

Long Range Ultrasonic Testing (LRUT) or Guided Wave Testing (GWT) was introduced commercially by Plant
Integrity Ltd in the form of the Teletest® technique in early 1998 for the in-service monitoring of pipes, pipelines
and structural tubulars.
 Commercial Timeline

1998: Teletest® Mk1 system launched.

2005: Focussing first implemented in Teletest ® Mk2 system.

2008: Teletest® Focus system launched.

2011: Teletest® Focus+ system launched.

Teletest – Prototype

Early examples of tooling and the original Mk1 unit – Serial No. 001
The Current Hardware

Teletest® Focus + System

Eddyfi Technologies acquires the Teletest Portfolio

WITH EFFECT FROM 13 OCTOBER 2017, PLANT

INTEGRITY LTD - A WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF
TWI - HAS SOLD ITS TELETEST® EQUIPMENT
BUSINESS TO EDDYFI TECHNOLOGIES, A WORLD
LEADER IN ADVANCED NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTING
SOLUTIONS.