The Hydrostatic test is a common way to check pipes, valves, and fittings (things that handle pressure). Skilled staff use water or coloured liquids to find leaks in equipment that holds pressure. Before starting the test, the staff need to know how the testing liquid might affect the equipment.
In a hydrostatic test, the part is filled with water, air is removed, and it’s pressurized to 1.5 times its normal pressure. This pressure is maintained for a specific time to check for leaks. To inspect leaks, tracers or fluorescent dyes can be added to the water for a thorough visual check.
There are three main methods for hydrostatic testing commonly used to examine tanks and pressure vessels. Normal strategies are:
Water Jacket Method
This method, as the name suggests, uses water. The container is filled with water and placed into a sealed chamber, also known as a test coat, which is also filled with water. The container is pressurized inside this chamber for a set amount of time. This pressure causes the water to come out into a glass tube, showing how much the container stretches. Once the stretching is measured, the pressure is released, and the container returns to its original size.
When the container returns to its original size, water goes back into the sealed chamber. Sometimes, the container might not return completely to its original size, known as a permanent expansion. The difference between permanent expansion and total expansion helps determine if the container is safe to use.
Hydrostatic Test Direct Expansion Method
The immediate extension strategy incorporates various stages like filling a vessel or chamber with a measured measure of water, compressing the framework, and afterwards working out the measure of water that is removed in the wake of delivering the tension. By estimating the measure of water that is filled into the vessel, the test tension during the compressing system, and the measure of water that is ousted from the vessel, the absolute extension too as the long-lasting development is not really set in stone.
Hydrostatic Test Proof Pressure Method
The Proof pressure test guarantees the releases and shortcomings like divider diminishing of the vessels by applying inward tension. This test strategy is simpler when contrasted with different techniques and furthermore can be acted in the least time. It additionally decides the blunders by recording complete extension esteem and long-lasting development esteems.
This large number of techniques are utilized in the Hydrostatic test, yet on the off chance that any gear can’t deal with the heap of strain or water. Then, at that point, pneumatic testing can be applied by filling the vessels with gases like nitrogen or air. Yet, this sort of testing needs more extraordinary alerts than Hydrostatic testing.