The transporting of petroleum, petroleum products, or other substances in pipelines is one of the most efficient and safest ways of transportation, since pipeline engineering must meet very high safety standards and these are constantly being developed. The continuous growth in pipeline networks means that materials testing is becoming more and more important for the protection of people and the environment.
Against this background Zwick has enlarged its product program for metals testing and introduced a new DWT line of large drop impact testers from 20 to 100 kJ.
The drop weight test helps Engineers to evaluate the fractured surfaces of Ferritic steels, as the relative proportions of deformation and brittle fracture surfaces are diagnosed by visual determination. Ferritic steels are usually used for pipeline tubes or for sheet metals used in the manufacturing of such tubes.
The recommended practice 5L3 issued by the American Petroleum Institute (API) describes the testing procedure to be used on large-drop impact testers. A specimen supported at both ends is impacted with a cold-press-fitted notch, with the point of impact opposite the notch. Since the specimen thicknesses are very large sections of actual pipeline tubes, high impact energies of up to 100,000 Joule are necessary to break the specimen.
Zwick’s DWT large-drop impact testers are differentiated by their sophisticated integral safety concept that does not allow any access to the test area while in test mode. Furthermore, for drop impact tests, high rates of testing are required, so Zwick has developed a pneumatic feeding system to simplify the loading of the specimens into the testing machine.