Not logged inAmerican Welding Society Forum
Forum AWS Website Help Search Login
Up Topic Welding Industry / Inspection & Qualification / X-Ray testing service providers?
- - By Steve Mathias Date 12-10-2007 18:36
I need to inspect a silver-soldered brass assembly of machined parts.  We've had failures, and I want to assure myself that revised processes can reliably make joint with good integrity.

Can anyone recommend an x-ray (or any other appropriate process) testing company in Northern California, preferably near Sacramento?  I'd much prefer a recommendation over a yellow pages ad.
Parent - - By hogan (****) Date 12-10-2007 18:53
if your loking for a bond no bond inspection, then UT might be a better choice
Parent - By 803056 (*****) Date 12-10-2007 23:40
Hogan is on the right track. If you are looking for unbonded areas, UT will do a better job than radiography provided the transducer is sized for the parts being tested. You may have to use a delay to get the sound past the near field.

Best regards - Al
Parent - By CWI555 (*****) Date 12-11-2007 00:17
I would suggest finding someone with an immersion UT tank for this one if the part geometry is complicated, radius-ed or otherwise unsuitable for contact UT. (which is the case more often than not for what you describe)

I agree with the other gentlemen in that UT would be your better process, just suggesting that contact UT may not be the best solution.

1.9 cents worth +-.01%
Gerald
Parent - - By NDTIII (***) Date 12-11-2007 04:45
Can you provide us with more information?
Parent - - By sbmathias (*) Date 12-12-2007 19:39
I'd be happy to provide more information about the problem.  You can see a photograph at
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc300/sbmathias/PC060103.jpg

Not sure what other information you'd like, so please ask if there's something specific that might move this along.
Parent - By hogan (****) Date 12-13-2007 15:44
it looks like UT will not work to good on this. it might need an elliptical or superimposed RT.
Parent - - By g32141 (**) Date 12-14-2007 06:06 Edited 12-14-2007 06:18
Take a look around the faying surfaces. Almost no brazing material seeped into where it was supposed to. It looks as if the bottom peg was yanked out a bit during your mechanical test due to the small variation on coloring. A tiny amount of brazing material entered there at the corner but was ripped apart and you can see the other half of what is left of it on the opposite corner on the other half of the part.

I used to radiograph tons of brazed parts on the east coast. There is something wrong with your process and UT or RT will not tell you what it is.They can tell you where the voids are but not what caused them or how to fix them.

That part also looks like it would take awhile to set up a decent technique with radiography too. Shooting it eliptical like a pipe weld won't be that great because the faying surface is so thin and would resemble lack of side wall fusion which radiography has a hard time picking up. Then if you need to determine the amount of voids in the faying surfaces with those 2 pegs you run into more wore work. Before you send it out for all kinds of fancy testing make sure you can't pull it apart first.

Check out these 2 companies that do dip brazing on stuff that goes into space. They braze tons of stuff and do big percentages of a lot with radiography. As long as you aren't in competition with them their engineers might help you out. They are on the East coast but they might be able to help.

http://www.contmicro.com/index.asp
http://www.mdllab.com/
Parent - By Steve Mathias Date 12-14-2007 22:54
Thanks for the leads.  I know the problem is in the process, and I think we have some good ideas on how to change it.  I just want some way to make sure that the new processes have improved the situation.
Up Topic Welding Industry / Inspection & Qualification / X-Ray testing service providers?

Powered by mwForum 2.29.2 © 1999-2013 Markus Wichitill