Liquid Penetrant Inspection

Liquid penetrant (LPI) testing services are reliable for detecting surface-breaking flaws in just about any solid material with a non-porous surface. A dye is placed on the inspection surface and allowed to seep into crevices. The surface dye is then removed and creviced dye is drawn to the surface in a development process to identify discontinuities in the material. The two main types of LPI used are visible and fluorescent dyes, with the fluorescent version of the inspection having an increased sensitivity of as much as 1000 times that of the visible inspection. An advantage of this inspection method is that it is very portable and can be performed at remote locations. Permanent recording of results is possible with the aid of photography.