Forged flange is a common pipe fitting, and its quality is directly related to the safe operation of pipelines. The quality inspection of forged flanges should be carried out from the following aspects:
- Appearance Inspection: Check the dimensions, shapes, and surface finishes of the forged flanges, and require no defects such as cracks, bubbles, and inclusions under the premise of meeting relevant standards;
- Hardness Inspection: Usually, a hardness tester is used to test the hardness of the forged flange, and the test result should meet the requirements of relevant standards.
- Chemical composition and mechanical properties inspection: The chemical composition of the forged flange steel ingot should be analyzed after sampling, including the content of copper, nickel, vanadium, titanium and other elements. At the same time, tensile tests and impact tests will also be carried out to test whether the strength and toughness of the forged flange meet the requirements.
Example:
A steel plant produced a batch of DN600 forged flanges and conducted appearance inspection, hardness inspection, chemical composition and mechanical properties inspection according to the above requirements. All indicators met the relevant standard requirements, and the product was considered qualified. However, during use, a customer reported that there were defects such as cracks and internal inclusions on the surface of the batch of forged flanges, which caused abnormal use and leakage in the pipeline, causing economic losses and reputation risks to the enterprise.
This case tells us that quality inspection should not only be carried out in accordance with standard regulations, but also fully focus on the production process and operational details of the products, ensuring that potential hazards are eliminated from the source and minimizing the economic losses and safety risks caused by quality problems.
