TÜV SÜD's Experience with Large-Scale PAUT Projects
With limited shutdown windows, maximizing asset coverage is critical. Scan speed can make the difference between completing a project on schedule, reducing inspection scope, or extending a turnaround window.
When Turnaround Time is Limited
For inspection service providers and asset owners responsible for large weld networks and corrosion-prone assets, collecting high-quality phased-array data quickly is an ongoing challenge.
Challenges in the Field
We spoke with TÜV SÜD Industrie Service, which explained: “The challenges we face are that, at times, we inspect relatively large volumes of weld seams—a great many meters at once—or perform fairly large-area corrosion mapping using ultrasound.” As inspection volumes continued to grow, TÜV SÜD needed a way to maintain data quality while significantly increasing throughput on large-area scans, enabling the team to meet demanding project schedules without compromising inspection quality.
TÜV SÜD Industrie Service had been using Eddyfi Technologies’ Gekko® phased array instrument, which technically worked well, but ‘they were somewhat limited in [scan] speed, with the acquisition rate…especially when working with two 64-element sensors using all the elements…’. This would give him roughly 10-15 mm/s. They also pointed out that the Gekko's software could be fairly rigid, forcing you to go through each step, point by point, without really being able to skip ahead. So, whilst the results were good, time became a pressure point.
To address these throughput limitations, TÜV SÜD introduced Cypher® into its inspection workflow. The impact was most noticeable on large-scale weld inspection and corrosion-mapping projects, where acquisition speed directly affects project duration. On a recent project, they achieved scan speeds of 70-75 mm/s, compared with approximately 10-15 mm/s from the Gekko, representing a substantial increase in throughput. It also highlighted improvements in workflow efficiency. Compared with previous setups, the interface provided a more intuitive workflow, guiding users through key stages of setup while still allowing flexibility when customization was required.
"I definitely like the menu navigation…it’s user-friendly."
The Result
The impact became particularly clear during an inspection campaign at a chemical park, where TÜV SÜD inspected four flat-bottom tanks and four vertical vessels. According to TÜV SÜD Industrie Service, "we were actually able to carry out these complete inspections within six days, and that was a 100% weld inspection and partial corrosion mapping." They attribute much of that efficiency to the increased scan speeds achieved with Cypher. For TÜV SÜD, the benefit was not simply faster scanning. It was the ability to complete comprehensive inspections within demanding project schedules.
Reducing turnaround pressures is about more than meeting schedules. It helps inspection teams maximize coverage while maintaining confidence in the quality of the data collected.
In many turnaround environments, inspection teams are not limited by what they need to inspect, but by the time available to complete the work. Faster acquisition speeds can enable broader coverage, allowing teams to inspect a greater percentage of critical assets without extending outages.
TÜV SÜD's experience reflects a broader trend across the inspection industry. As asset owners demand more coverage, more data, and shorter turnaround schedules, inspection providers are increasingly looking for technologies that improve throughput without compromising data quality. In these environments, productivity gains are not simply a convenience. They can directly influence project timelines, resource utilization, and outage costs.
For TÜV SÜD Industrie Services, those benefits have translated into measurable improvements in the field:
"I'd say the Cypher is currently pretty much state of the art, as far as the hardware goes. I would definitely recommend it."