Eddy Current Testing in Offshore: What It Finds, What It Misses, and What Governs It
What ET is actually used for in offshore
Offshore MT gives way to eddy current and ACFM where coatings must stay intact — weld toes on primary structure can be examined through paint, saving the blast-and-recoat cycle.
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 offshore assets this applies to
Platform topsides and process modules, structural jackets and risers, subsea infrastructure, and FPSO hulls and turrets.
The damage mechanisms driving the examination
Fatigue is the defining mechanism — wave loading cycles structural nodes continuously — with seawater corrosion, splash-zone attack, and CUI on topside process equipment.
What governs acceptance
Class societies and, in the US Gulf, BSEE regulation; API RP 2X-family guidance for structural examination; operator standards above all of it. Access and weather windows shape scope as much as the code does. 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 · Offshore programme consulting · Offshore NDT training · scope a ET examination.
ET in other sectors
Refining · Petrochemical · LNG · Pipeline · Marine & Shipbuilding · Aviation & Aerospace.