Pipe Inspection Before Assembly

Identifying the condition of pipe is the most important thing before you do further action such as cutting, welding or another purpose. Once material received, you have to inspect its condition, if there is any defect out of spec tolerance, we have to confirm manufacture prior to replacing. For pipe, first of all, please do visual checking as below:

1.       Check stamp on the body of material whether it’s comply with our requirement or not, normally it consists of material grade (ASTM no), size, schedule & heat number.

2.       Check dimension of pipe consist of pipe length, thickness & OD pipe

3.       Check outside & inside surface of pipe whether there is a defect or not.

4.       Check the certification of pipe, this may explain about material arrangement, PMI test result, etc.

For surface checking, several defects commonly find on inside or outside of pipe body.

-          Pipe Bending

This defect happened normally due to transportation or handling not using proper tools. This defect can’t be acceptable, measure how long the damage and cut it off.

-          Pipe Pitted/unsmooth pipe

This defect happened because of finishing surface from manufacture or it possible because of wrong handling. The defect coming from finishing surface such as pitted (inside or outside of pipe body), the pitted must be measured how deep it is and compare with allowable thickness, if still achieve the minimum thickness required by ASME/ANSI, it is acceptable.

Another defect due to finishing surface is unsmooth pipe, normally this is because of manufacture doesn’t do machining on the surface or final finishing. Come back with what spec you required when ordering, if doesn’t required smooth surface so it can be acceptable. but I remind you, every small defect pipe will have effect on running fluid.

Unsmooth pipe due to material handling can be scratch normally outside body pipe. Measure how deep it is and check with allowable thickness, if still achieve, it can be accepted.

-          Rusty pipe

Rusty pipe normally happened once CS or LTCS pipe received but if you find rusty pipe on stainless steel class pipe, this is not acceptable. You need to remove the rusty before its spread throughout the body. Cleaning can be done using chemical cleaning spray such as WD40 or others.