V & M France

Vallourec Industries

Vallourec & Mannesmann Tubes

Bernard Bisiaux

Sébastien Petit

Frederic Lesage

Sebastien Petit

Michel Vahe

Nidia Alejandra Segura Rodriguez

Frédéric Lesage

Sylvain Deutsch

Guillaume Cretenot

Michèle Detournay

Device forming an operating tool, for the non-destructive testing of iron and steel products, intended to extract information on possible imperfections in the product, from feedback signals that are captured by transmitting ultrasound sensors, receiving ultrasound sensors forming an arrangement with a selected geometry, assembled to couple in an ultrasound way with the product via the intermediary of a liquid medium, with relative rotation/translation movement between the pipe and the arrangement of transducers, said operating tool being characterized in that it comprises: a converter () capable of selectively isolating a digital representation of possible echoes in designated time windows, as a function of the relative rotation/translation movement, said representation comprising the amplitude and time of flight of at least one echo, and of generating a parallelepipedic 3D graph, a transformer unit () capable of generating a 3D image () of possible imperfections in the pipe from the 3D graph and a database, a filter () capable of determining, in the images (), presumed imperfection zones (Zcur), and the properties of each presumed imperfection, and an output stage configured to generate a product conformity or non-conformity signal.

Non-destructive testing, in particular for pipes during manufacture or in the finished state

A non-destructive testing device for pipes is provided. The device extracts information on defects from signals captured by ultrasound receivers following the selective excitation of ultrasound transmitters according to a selected time rule. The receivers form an arrangement with a selected geometry, coupled in an ultrasound fashion, with relative rotation/translation movement, with the pipe. The device includes a converter that selectively isolates a digital representation of echoes in designated time windows, as a function of the movement, and by extracting an image of defects, a filter which determines presumed defect zones and properties of these, a combiner to prepare working digital inputs from an extract of images of a defect zone, a neural circuit receiving the working inputs, a digital decision and alarm stage working on the basis of the output of the neural circuit, and a sorting and marking robot.

An installation for non-destructive control for a metal tube in which an ultrasound sensor includes transducer elements that can be excited each at selected times. A downstream circuit for processing the sensed signals analyzes a global response of the tube at ultrasonic excitation. The transducer elements are only excited to produce a single emission and the downstream circuit recovers the samples of the sensed signals each through a transducer element, to associate therewith successive times respectively offset, to calculate plural global responses of the tube at a single emission, by modifying the shifts between the successive times.

Ultrasound sensor for non-destructive control of metallurgical products

The method and the apparatus relate to the detection of faults in the wall of a passing metal tube. A solenoid or solenoids generate two alternating magnetic fields of different frequenceis, the frequencies being chosen from the range of medium and high frequencies, in order to produce in the wall of a tube eddy currents which interact with the faults. The signals resulting from these interactions are detected by at least one detection solenoid and each difference in amplitude D between the signals obtained at the two frequencies for one and the same fault is compared with a specific difference which constitutes a threshold for rejection of the corresponding tube. Application of the method and of the apparatus to the inspection of ferrous or non-ferrous magnetic and non-magnetic metal tubes.

Method and apparatus for inspecting metal tubes employing magnetically

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Valenciennes, France

Bernard Bisiaux