Heat Exchangers

KEMA has the expertise in the field of heat exchangers and the equipment needed to perform various tests of heat exchangers

Leak testing with Helium
Leak testing is often the final test of equipment in the manufacturing stage; during the service life, leaks may occur and leak testing will be necessary. Helium leak testing has several advantages over other leak testing techniques. To establish process dynamics, helium tracing is sometimes very useful as well. KEMA has years of experience in all sorts of applications, including nuclear power plants.

Seal weld testing of thin-walled tubing
Seal welds are often made to ensure the leak-tightness of heat exchangers, especially with thin-walled tubing such as condensers made of titanium and sometimes stainless steel. The leak-tightness cannot be guaranteed by the expansion rolling of the tube ends only. Since the first development of the Rotilas system, it has been used to scan and inspect over 2,000,000 seal welds!

Corrosion and erosion mapping
In order to establish the type of corrosion and severity more accurately than by means of standard eddy current testing, KEMA developed the "ROTEC" system to map the tube wall. With its flexible surface riding capability, the ROTEC system is especially suitable for certain steel tubing, such as finned economizer, evaporator and air cooler tubes. The system was later redesigned to handle curved tubing, as it is sometimes present in boilers. This system has been named "GROTEC".

Remote field Eddy Current tube testing
Conventional eddy current testing is hardly suitable for inspecting carbon steel tubing and tubes made of other ferromagnetic material. Remote field eddy current technique is often the solution to this problem. The shielding effect of the inner tube wall is less dominant than with the conventional eddy current testing.