No matter which kind of techniques in billet inspection applied among seamless steel pipe production, we should take each step carefully for high quality product. Today, we’d like to have a look for microwave technique.

This can be called advanced technique used among pipeline’s inspection. The detector can be mounted some tens of millimeters away from the billet surface and that must be of benefit since it reduces its susceptibility to mechanical damage. The inspection area is, however, relatively large and therefore one is to expect that it is responsive only to large area defects or to cracks of either longitudinal or transverse orientation. This form of detector shows enough merit to be considered but the capital cost of each detector head is high. For high quality seamless steel pipe, manufacturer would adopt this new method for the checking of the steel tubes.