Prefabricating industrial piping in a dedicated facility offers several advantages over the on-site alternative, especially during testing and finishing processes.
When performed directly on the job site, these secondary services can hold up productivity, add labor and transportation costs, and can even endanger workers — delaying project completion and, ultimately, overall production. These disruptions can be limited, however, by testing prefabricated pipe in a controlled environment away from the job site.
Below, we’ll take a look at four reasons why your project might benefit from utilizing off-site testing of piping fabrication.
Any time piping and tubing have been welded together, a predetermined percentage of the welds must undergo an X-ray test to verify its integrity. Radiographic testing requires that everyone clear the area for safety, which can temporarily shut down the job site, halt the progress of other trades, and add extra costs, as this process must often be done after hours. Also, the testing equipment needs to be moved from weld to weld which can sometimes be cumbersome depending on height and location of the weld joint.
When contractors choose to outsource fabrication, on the other hand, the x-ray technician is in close proximity to the weld and free to move from one weld to the next without any disruptions or restrictions to accessing the weld location. Only the final, post-installation welds require on-site NDT testing, thereby reducing overall downtime on the site and allowing the owner to be more productive with costs. Sometimes if the contractor uses the same welding personnel that fabricated the piping on-site and the percentage of welds already tested meets the final criteria, onsite X-Ray can be eliminated completely.