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Ultrasonic Phased Array Inspection of Electrofused Joints Implemented in Polyethylene Gas Piping Systems



Author(s)

Dominique Gueugnaut¹, Manuel Tessier², Romuald Bouaffre¹ and Aymeric Lopitaux¹

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DOI:10.17265/2161-6213/2017.3-4.002

1. ENGIE Lab–CRIGEN, Saint-Denis La Plaine F-93210, France
2. Institut de Soudure Industrie, Villepinte F-93420, France

PE (polyethylene) is a widespread material for the manufacturing of gas and water distribution pipelines and a large number of PE electrofusion pipe joints can be found over the thousands of kilometers of PE pipelines all over the world, thus generating an increasing interest in checking the quality of both these pipes and joints. Within the last few years it has been proved that—among the available concepts—the PAUT (phased array ultrasonic technique) was one of the most promising candidates for non destructive analysis of PE welds and pipes. No current operational NDE (non destructive examination) Technique to date has been adapted to inspect the small diameter electrofusion joints (OD from 20 to 63 mm) which are frequently encountered in particular on the French gas distribution networks. In the present paper, the acuity of PAUT to detect and size both poor weld quality (e.g. cold weld) and calibrated faults has been evaluated on 63 mm electrofused welds by ENGIE Lab CRIGEN jointly with Institut de Soudure Industrie. Moreover the results of the PAUT evaluation and those of the destructive peel tests according to ISO 13956 standard have been confronted in order to evaluate the degree of correlation between both techniques.

PE gas pipes, electrofused joints, PAUT, peel test, calibrated faults.