Hydrogen Damage

Sonomatic provides a cost-effective strategy to maximise the safe operation of the plant while reducing the risk of potentially dangerous conditions. The system pinpoints the worst affected areas, which can then be analysed in detail and subsequently monitored to establish the rate of propagation for the purposes of plant life assessment.

Hydrogen Induced Cracking

The first stage is screening: large areas of plant are scanned by manual ultrasonic examination to identify which areas are affected. The next stage is assessment, to isolate the worst affected areas, and for this the ultrasonic imaging of HIC damage is an important aid.

Using the Sonomatic TOFD techniques, relatively large areas of material can be scanned within realistic timescales, often on-stream (temperatures exceeding 200º C are routinely inspected). These inspections create images on-line which are stored for subsequent retrieval and analysis.

Hot Hydrogen Attack

Hot Hydrogen Attack (HHA) can occur where hydrogen is present in industrial processes operating at high pressure and temperature. It causes degradation and microcracking in both welds and parent material, and can cause catastrophic plant failures.

Sonomatic has developed a range of advanced techniques for detection and monitoring of HHA: these combine the advanced signal processing and imaging available from the Microplus system, with thickness mapping from Seescan. These are used with our ToFD, back scatter and velocity ratio techniques.