Ultrasonic Safety & Survey Equipments

Friday 12 July 2013

Ship Owners Make It Mandatory to Check Tightness of Hatch with Ultrasound

The transport industry of the world is ever on the move. This is particularly one industry that never sleeps. Carrying tons of weight upon the surface of the ocean; the staff of these transport ships has the responsibility of carrying goods worth millions of dollars from one place to another. The responsibility is not just to transport, but they also have to make sure that no damage happens to the goods during the shipping process. For the convenience of both the parties (customer and the shipping company) a list of goods is made and they are submitted to the shipping company which automatically makes the goods covered by insurance. If anything happens to the goods during the voyage, the customer is reimbursed the payment through the insurance company.

It should be noted here that although the insurance company pays the customer for the damages incurred to his goods, the shipping company also faces a fine for it. Due to this the profit of the shipping company gets sliced. The biggest reason for all these disastrous events during the voyage is the leaking hatch covers. As the goods are inside the cargo holds with no permanent roof on top, their only safety is because of the hatch covers. The hatch covers should be tight enough to make the insides waterproof and weather proof also. The tightness of these hatch covers should be regularly checked by the modern method known as the hatch cover ultrasonic tightness testing.

In this method the hatch cover’s tightness is tested using an ultrasonic device. Because of its outstanding performance and its ability to pick up even the minutest crack that may have occurred on any side of the hatch cover due to corrosion or mishandling, it can alert the staff about the damaged area in an instant. When the staff learns about the damaged area, they can inspect it and make a better decision and send it for repairs.

As a safety and precautionary measure, the tightness of hatch with ultrasound is again checked. If the device still points out a leak, it is further investigated and then verified if anything else has happened during the repair works. Until the hatch covers are passed from all the ultrasonic tests, the ship is not set to sail because if it does, the results can be catastrophic. Every good in the cargo hold can be destroyed and the loss would be much more than affordable.

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