FLEXIBLE AND INDEPENDENT – OUR IN-HOUSE LABORATORY

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When it comes to product quality, requirements are becoming increasingly stringent and complicated. It is simply impossible to produce a top-quality pipe fitting without a comprehensive quality control and testing system.
 

For a butt-weld fitting to be used in a project, it must fulfil an enormous range of different requirements – both standards for the pipe fitting itself, as the final product, and those for the component materials. In addition, the fitting must be shown to meet the special requirements for the specific application or project (e.g. plant construction) as well as any particular customer specifications. Quality testing is a key part of the production process at Erne Fittings. We perform two types of test – non-destructive and destructive. Non-destructive tests are conducted by our internal quality control teams, while destructive tests are performed by our very own on-site test laboratory.

The tests performed at the state-of-the-art Erne Lab are all accredited by Akkreditierung Austria – the Austrian National Accreditation Body – in line with EN ISO 17025. The major advantage of having our own independent test laboratory is that we have greater flexibility and are able to run tests and external inspections much more quickly on-site. The destructive tests conducted by the Erne Lab include impact bending tests, tensile tests, various corrosion tests, metallographic testing and spectral analysis.

In the past year, we have invested heavily in our laboratory equipment to ensure we deliver top-quality products to our customers every time. We have purchased new machines and equipment, such as a section cutting machine to make it easier to prepare samples for metallographic testing, a new control system for hot tensile tests and a new fully-automated hardness testing machine for microhardness and low-load hardness testing. We have also invested in a new state-of-the-art room temperature monitoring system with data recorder, to ensure we maintain optimum testing conditions at all times.

Our exceptionally well equipped laboratory and skilled staff also provide services for external companies, including well-known manufacturers in the metal industry and technology sectors and other laboratories. These services include procedural tests and component testing.

_{Erne News 04/2020}