Rapid CUI Inspection with the DRA 3543 NDT Flat Panel Detector from DÜRR NDT

NDE Solutions Pty Ltd, located in Adelaide, South Australia with a team of over 60 employees provides non-destructive testing and inspection solutions to the oil and gas, defence, power, and mining industries.

NDE Solutions has been using the DÜRR NDT DRA 3543 digital flat panel since 2021 in combination with Iridium-192 radiation sources to perform Corrosion-Under-Insulation (CUI) radiography for confirming pipe wall loss in oil and gas plants and refineries. The panel sees weekly use in 8-hour continuous shifts and typically is used to capture more than 60 X-ray images per month.

The DRA 3543 has an active area of 35 x 43 cm with a 100-micron pixel pitch which allows it to be used for both pipe wall loss as well as fine corrosion pitting detection. Multiple operators at NDE Solutions are trained to use the system and describe it as “reliable, compact, easy to setup, and the D-Tect X software is simple to operate, especially when transferring images for reporting.” The DÜRR NDT D-Tect X inspection software features an automatic wall thickness measurement tool which allowed the operators to “quickly and easily showcase minimum and maximum findings”.

On the comparison to conventional film radiography, NDE Solutions commented: “being able to confirm image quality prior to leaving the site is a huge positive. Digital also saves time with reshoots and there is no need to develop film.”

NDE Solutions has had an extremely positive experience when any questions or issues arise and mentioned that “they were able to get assistance within 30 minutes”. DÜRR NDT achieves this high level of support in partnership with EN DE TEK Australia who also performs maintenance and any other required service activities to ensure the system is always running per specification.