The week we had to redo a 40-foot boiler section because of a bad weld

Last month in Kansas City, we spent three days putting up a new boiler section... only to find a hairline crack in a main seam during the hydro test. The weld looked perfect on the surface, but the X-ray showed a cold lap running six inches long. We had to cut it all out, prep new plate, and start over, which set us back almost 80 hours. The foreman said it was the quietest he'd ever seen the crew at lunch that day. Has anyone else had a job go sideways because of a flaw that passed a visual check?

3 comments

3 Comments

karen_nelson408d ago

We had a 16-inch stainless pipe spool come back from the fab shop looking great. Pressure tested fine, but the UT picked up a cluster of slag lines you couldn't see. My nickname was "Rework" for a solid month after that.

mason7282d ago

How deep did those slag lines run? Did they have to cut out a whole section or just grind it down?

the_morgan8d ago

Honestly that's just part of the job sometimes. Visual checks are a good first step but they can't catch everything hidden in the metal. Tbh I'd rather find it in testing than have it fail out in the field later.