Liquid Penetrant Testing Service

The principle of liquid penetrant testing is that the liquid penetrant is drawn into the surface-breaking crack by capillary action and excess surface penetrant is then removed; a developer (typically a dry powder) is then applied to the surface, to draw out the penetrant in the crack and produce a surface indication. Cracks as narrow as 150 nanometres can be detected. The indications produced are much broader than the actual flaw and are therefore more easily visible. Liquid penetrant testing can be applied to any non-porous clean material, metallic or non-metallic, but is unsuitable for dirty or very rough surfaces. Surface cleaning is a vital part of the penetrant testing technique. The method can be manual, semi-automatic or fully automated. Penetrant inspection, continuous-operation production lines in which the specimens are cleaned, dipped, washed, dried, etc on a time cycle are common. Recently, equipment to fully automate the visual inspection stage of the process, by robotic handling of the specimen on a programmed procedure with television camera viewing and pattern recognition to identify and recognise flaws, has been introduced. Television image enhancement processes can be included. A special, very high sensitivity penetrant process, using radioactive tracers is sometimes used, but requires very stringent safety procedures.