Heat Exchanger Leak Detection

At WCR we offer three kinds of leak detection for plates:

• Dye penetrant testing
• Ultraviolet testing 
• Vacuum testing

Every plate that WCR services is leak tested in order to eliminate any damaged plates. It is extremely important that all plates are tested as 90% of plates tested have less than 10% failure rate. This means that random checking of 10% or even 20% of the plates will not eliminate all bad plates, which potentially could cause cross contamination and more down-time, a very costly affair for any operation.

Dye penetrant testing
Our standard leak detecting test is a dye penetrant test where a dye is sprayed onto one side of the plate and a developer on the other. Although this test is very time consuming and the most expensive way of testing, we find it's the most reliable method of finding cracks and pinholes, where even the smallest possible pinhole will be detected.

Ultraviolet testing
The ultraviolet test is used upon request. When using this method, one side of the plate is sprayed with a dye penetrant and subsequently inspected under ultraviolet light, to reveal cracks and pinholes.

Vacuum testing
Vacuum testing of plates is used for welded and semi-welded heat exchanger plates. None of the dye penetrant methods can be used with these types of plates. This method will detect if a plate has a leak but it will not identify where the crack or the hole is.