Recently, much emphasis is being placed on the safety of underground pipelines. Pfinde, LLC has been intimately involved with inspections, which characterize the anomalies found by “smart pigs”. Over the last 5 years, we have characterized over 3000 anomalies in over 2000 digs.

We believe that we have more experience performing this service than any other independent organization.

Burst testing of cracked pipe

Our personnel are qualified and certified in accordance with the American Society for Non Destructive Testing (ASNT) document SNT-TC-1A.  The principal of the company is a Professional Level III in accordance with ASNT. 

In addition, all personnel have been qualified for the applicable tasks under both the NCCER/ISNETworld and the Veriforce programs.  Our drug and alcohol testing program is administered by Pipeline Testing Consortium and has been accepted by many pipeline operators.

Pfinde, LLC uses a systematic approach to pipeline integrity examinations. All work is performed to written procedures and all examinations are thoroughly documented. Our experience in working with the regulators on inspection issues and problems is a valuable asset that we bring to pipeline integrity projects.

Pfinde, LLC has provided to various pipeline operators all of the following services.  We can provide turnkey programs or can provide any of the services separately.

• Project Management
• Inspection Techniques
• Procedures for examination
• Personnel qualification via practical examinations
• Equipment
• Inspection Personnel
• QC personnel for repair and replacement activities
• Data base updates and/or management

Serious pipeline defects can be from deep cracks in longitudinal welds, corrosion, SCC and third party damage. Non-injurious anomalies such as minor longitudinal weld defects, minor pitting, material permeability changes, minor trimming tool gouges, minor dents and bulges are found much more frequently than the serious defects. FAST UT is far more reliable than shear wave UT for sorting out the serious indications from the minor anomalies. Once characterized, FAST can also reliably size the flaws whether ID or OD connected.

FAST UT is a suitable replacement for surface examination such as magnetic particle (MT) examination for long seam OD cracking. FAST is used to depth size flaws found with MT. Frequently, the flaw depths are acceptable. Therefore, why not just skip the time consuming MT examination and detect and size in one step with FAST? This is done at the same time that the ID is examined for cracking.

Measuring and Mapping OD Corrosion

Deep Crack in .312T Pipe Long Seam

SCC sizing is done very effectively with FAST.  PfiNDE has applied this technique to hundreds of SCC colonies with excellent results.  As long as scanning surfaces are adequate the deepest SCC cracks can normally be sized even when there are numerous other cracks in the area.  Results have been verified many times.

(Click on pictures for detail)