Eddy Current Testing in Marine & Shipbuilding: What It Finds, What It Misses, and What Governs It
What ET is actually used for in marine & shipbuilding
Marine diesel engine components, turbocharger parts and shaft tapers are examined with eddy current during overhaul, where a missed crack ends up as a tow.
How ET works
Eddy current testing induces circulating currents in a conductive material and reads the impedance change a discontinuity causes. It needs no couplant and no contact, which makes it the fastest surface and near-surface method available — and, in tube form, the only practical way to screen thousands of heat-exchanger tubes inside a shutdown window.
What ET will not do
What ET will not do: examine non-conductive material, penetrate deeply (the effect is confined near the surface, more so as frequency rises), or produce results anyone can interpret without training — signal interpretation is the whole skill, and lift-off, edge effects and permeability variation all masquerade as indications.
The marine & shipbuilding assets this applies to
Hull structure and plating, ballast and cargo tanks, propulsion and shafting, deck machinery, and the yard's own new-construction welding.
The damage mechanisms driving the examination
Fatigue at structural details, corrosion in ballast spaces and at the waterline, coating breakdown, and construction defects that surface as in-service cracking.
What governs acceptance
Classification societies (ABS above all in US work) for commercial survey and acceptance; NAVSEA technical publications on naval work, with qualification layered over SNT-TC-1A. On the method side: ASME Section V Article 8 for tubing; ASTM E243 and E571 for specific product forms; aerospace surface examination runs under NAS 410 with OEM technique requirements. An examination that is technically sound but performed outside the governing regime is not an examination anyone will accept, which is why the code family matters as much as the technique.
How Atlantis delivers ET in this sector
Atlantis mobilises examination teams to your site under Atlantis procedures with ASNT Level III oversight — we do not claim a depot or laboratory in every market, and say so plainly. What you receive is the examination performed to a qualified procedure, findings evaluated against the acceptance criteria your contract names, and records structured to survive a client audit years later.
Eddy Current Testing services · ET training and certification · Marine & Shipbuilding programme consulting · Marine & Shipbuilding NDT training · scope a ET examination.
ET in other sectors
Refining · Petrochemical · LNG · Offshore · Pipeline · Aviation & Aerospace.