The eight-foot diameter pipe extends about a half-mile into the Atlantic. It was new construction at the time but seeping inside, and about a third of the inspection involved overhead work. Being the new guy on the crew, virtually any dirty job was seen as a rite of passage.

I was given a golf cart so I wouldn’t have to walk all that way with my gear. At the site, it took nearly four hours to properly prepare and dry the weld area, apply liquid penetrant, let it dwell, and perform the inspection, plus another hour or so to clean up.

The entire time I kept thinking that my little golf cart wasn’t going to outrun the seawater if it really started rushing in. The quicker I could get out of there the happier I would be.

Today, more than 30 years later, liquid penetrant testing (PT)—also known as liquid penetrant inspection (LPI) or dye penetrant inspection (DPI)—remains one of the most common nondestructive methods for identifying surface-breaking defects and discontinuities.

Read the full article at Quality Magazine.