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Castings & Forgings

Nearly all steel components begin life as a casting, metal that has been melted, poured into a mould and solidified. In the casting process at the foundry, because the mould has the shape of the desired component, there are finishing processes that need to be completed once a casting is done. The first "shape" in forgings is an ingot or continuously cast billet. Ingots are large, usually rectangular in form and weigh up to several tons. Ingots or continuously cast billets are forged into shapes by hammers or presses. Extensive machining to final configuration usually is required, before finishing operations can begin. Casting and Forging defects are difficult to detect as they are not always visible on the surface. Ultrasonic flaw detection is commonly used for internal defects and magnetic particle or liquid penetrant for surface inspection.

Commonly used ultrasonic equipment is the Powerscan 450P due to it's high power, high signal to noise ratio and exceptional bandwidth which allows the use of large diameter low frequency transducers that are often have to be used with very large forged or cast components.  These need to be inspected for commonly very small defects such as cracks, tears, seams, bursts along with inclusions.  All of these defects can cause extensive problems in final machining and production processes.

For smaller, lighter weight castings, such as automotive engine blocks in aluminium, this component size allows the use of flaw detectors from the Sitescan range. The A-Scan Reference feature enables easy identification of changes in measurement from the standard casting.

For surface discontinuities found on castings a surface inspection technique such as Magnetic Particle or Dye Penetrant is the method of choice.