Deposit and Blockage Determination
Deposits and blockages or any impedance to flow in pipes or filters can cause drastic effects. Too large of a blockage can burst pipes, cause equipment to overheat in cooling and lubrication systems as well as break intricate parts of a machine and lead to corrosion on other parts, flooding or general failure. This can be even more drastic if the substances transported can be detrimental to health. Consequently, it is vital to prevent blockages, determine the material and its source or at least find the root cause in order to prevent re-occurrence. Our lab has a wealth of experience when it comes to identifying blockage causes, materials and generation of debris as is seen in the list of work undertaken by our experienced analysts:
- SEM to examine surface roughness looking at reasons for poor liquid flow characteristics.
- SEM to inspect for ease of cleaning and characterisation of trapped contaminants to determine improved cleaning regimes.
- Pipe blockages and generation of debris
- Debris in pump systems for automotive applications
- Semiquantitative XRF to detemine chemical nature of filter blockages.
- Filter blockage material and source identified by SEM/EDX and FTIR Microscopy.
- SEM/EDX automated particle characterisation and analysis of dust and debris on filter media.
- Corrosion and pipe failure investigations