Fraudulent Mill Certs 9

[moltenmetal]

We received from a large, reputable distributor, four lengths of Chinese-origin 316/L pipe. All four had the same heat number and other mill markings. Mill cert list compositions in accordance with the spec and also indicate "100% PMI".

On-site PMI testing with an XRF gun (later confirmed by a third party NDE company) show the material to be several percent under in nickel content in three of four lengths tested, with the fourth being well within spec on Ni and other main constituents.

Though we've received material with other product flaws before, this is a first for us. Now that we're asking, we're hearing from others that this kind of thing does occur fairly often and to date we've just been lucky...

How often are you experiencing the receipt of material where either mill certs or mill markings are blatantly fraudulent? We're not talking about something being marginally off-spec here- we're talking several percent in the content of a key alloying ingredient!

Do others here have documented experiences of this sort with Chinese origin material? Which product forms? How about from other countries?

 

[dik]

We had a project here a while back and the tests were identical, except for the numbers... also of Chinese origin... pipe that should have failed at over 1000 psi... failed at slightly over 100...

Dik

 

[EdStainless]

chemistry, wall thickness, mechanical properties, NDT.....
We by material out of Asia, in every case we only deal with distributors that are the original mills customer of record. If it has been through two distributors we won't touch it.
We have never had issues out of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. It gets risky beyond that.

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Plymouth Tube

 

[moltenmetal]

Previous to this, our sole experience of this sort of problem has been a single through-wall defect in the weld in a piece of Korean origin welded seam SS pipe, and bore damage due to improper cleaning/inerting during anneal of seamless SS tubing.

Wow, doing PMI on every piece of pipe we receive is going to be a huge PITA. I doubt we can trust the distributors to reliably do it for us, though they'll happily charge us for it. EdStainless's suggestion is a very good one except for delivery in some cases. Banning Chinese origin basically means banning delivery from stock around here, so that's not really an option either.

 

[MJCronin]

Substandard piping and components from China !!! What a shock !

"...we're talking several percent in the content of a key alloying ingredient!"

Yup....and nickle is the most expensive ingredient.

This, of course, is the nasty end of international trade. Cheating on piping mill certs by China began on the first day of trading. This engineering forum (and others) are filled with anecdotes about defective Chinese materials.

Remember, if defective materials were produced and purchased in the same country, this would be a breach of contract and a court of law would assess and reward damages.

But, because this is international trade, instead you get a shrug and an offer to sell more pipe.... There is no justice. Buyer beware....

The Chinese hide behind a complex and lethargic system that does not punish cheats....

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=247851

 

[moltenmetal]

MJCronin: I've seen the anecdotes. To date the only thing we ban from China until now is A53 pipe.

What I haven't seen much of here or elsewhere is evidence of deliberate fraud. It is physically impossible for three lengths to fail and one length to pass on Ni if indeed they were from the same heat. 100% PMI was obviously a lie too. There is no other conclusion BUT fraud. Admittedly we're not using thousands of lengths of material here so our experience base is small.

Defects undetected are a very different matter- the anecdotes about bad quality materials have been very prevalent and even we've seen some as I noted. However, the defects we've seen prior to this have been indication of bad work practice or quality assurance etc., but not of deliberate fraud.

 

[EdStainless]

We have hollows for redraw extruded for us in China. The relationship has been in place for about 10 years. We send a person to witness every production run, still. We want them to know that we care.

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Plymouth Tube

 

[arunmrao]

There are professionals,who help companies in preshipment inspection . This,adds to the comfort and confidence,that the product could be used right away. I too am involved in such activities.

If you compare the certificates provided by the distributor,mill certificates and your findings,the three would be different.

_____________________________________
"It's better to die standing than live your whole life on the knees" by Peter Mayle in his book A Good Year

 

[SJones]

Hey, come on. Let's not get down to China bashing, I've been personally involved with two very serious fraudulent certification incidents: one from Germany and one from Italy. The incentives for cheating are not restricted to only one part of the world.

Steve Jones
Materials & Corrosion Engineer

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/8/83b/b04

 

[arunmrao]

People are learning fast all over,that there is a sucker waiting for them. Like in another forum, I had mentioned of someone from Germany supplying a die casting machine for stainless steel castings.The buyer was ruined.

_____________________________________
"It's better to die standing than live your whole life on the knees" by Peter Mayle in his book A Good Year

 

[moltenmetal]

SJones: that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

I know there are incentives for cheating. I also know you get the quality you inspect for. Call me a sucker if you will, but I've never seen this sort of thing before. Minor off-spec issues, sure. Issues of sloppy or incompetent work- all the time, from all over the world. But outright fraud like this is new to me.

I guess I've just woken up to a new world full of new headaches and costs I've haven't budgeted for. It's not the first time that's happened, nor will it be the last.

 

[stanweld]

FYI,
Very recently, I reviewed an MTR for A-335 P91 that only showed the chemistry for A-335 P9. Material was purported to be US origin. One problem was that the US manufacturer has never made P91. Pipe was purchased from a US stockist.

In our current age of globalism and economic downturn, Buyer beware!!!

 

[arunmrao]

Cross border trading has its own unique problems .

Last year a company in Middle East wanted a few castings ASTM A 487 processed for establishing welding procedure .Their approved vendor supplied them and on all 3 occassions the test bar failed. The company was in panic as the vessel was berthed and charges were going up with no solution. I was contacted,we made them,proof machined the parts,radiographed the parts,conducted heat treatment as per their requirements and shipped them in 1 week. They were able to progress. The vendor is a US company,unfortunately he was sourcing the parts from India,which he had not revealed to the end user. Certificates were being manipulated in US as if they originated from US.

Thus no geography is free from such unscruplous elements. It is happening and will continue to happen.

_____________________________________
"It's better to die standing than live your whole life on the knees" by Peter Mayle in his book A Good Year

 

[EdStainless]

knowing your supply chain is the only defense.
The end user is the one responsible for enforcement of specifications.
In westerns countries we only deal directly with mills or a distributor that we have audited and built a relationship with.
Purchasing does not run our business, QA and engineering do.
Trust but verify is still a good way to do business.

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Plymouth Tube

 

[arunmrao]

Ed, bottom line quality and reliability do not come cheap.

_____________________________________
"It's better to die standing than live your whole life on the knees" by Peter Mayle in his book A Good Year

 

[blacksmith37]

"Trust, but verify", I think that is the quote. The serious verification comes with flaw inspection; Amoco had a few test joints ( 5CT) with various notches cut in them ; they got more frequent miles going to mill inspection units around the world than most engineers. Being positive, the Japanese had great pipe and NDE (in the '90s). Most everywhere else we got involved in discussions about differences between flat bottom drilled holes, square notches, V notches, etc.

 

[moltenmetal]

Ed, that's all well and good for you in your business, but when you're not buying miles or tonnages of material it's well nigh impossible. As to the end user being the owner of spec enforcement, our end users are looking for our advice on how best to do that without going overboard. They trust us and we don't want to let them down.

We engineers do our own procurement here too- no bean counter is running the show- but we can't ignore the international supply marketplace either, nor are we interested in buying name proxies for quality such as name recognition etc. Our quantities are too small to buy mill runs direct, most of our distributors are probably not direct importers, and the distributors are in business to make money as best they can in a very competitive marketplace too. We have relationships with our distributors, but we're not in bed with anybody. In this case, the "relationship" will be paying for the full cost of replacing that fraudulent crap with material meeting spec, but that is cold comfort for the scare it put into us here.

One thing's certain: I see ownership of a Niton gun in our immediate future. Until now we've relied on subs for spot PMI, and at present that seems way too risky. Whether we extend that to spot confirmation of mechanical properties or the like, we'll have to take on a project by project basis.

 

[metengr]

Users are in a different category in comparison to suppliers or vendors. I hear the same Bull Sh&% from so-called top tier suppliers in the US. Basically, it is up to "the users" to verify what has been purchased from top tier or other suppliers. There was one tubing supplier in the US that provided condenser tubes with obvious holes, that swore up and down they could not figure how their product made it through their so-called QC back-stop. The problem was found during installation.

So, as a user we police our big ticket material products and for the small items we have several key suppliers that on occasion we police.

 

[21121956]

Hello everybody:

In addition to all said, so far in this thread, take a look to thread794-188022 and thread794-195299.

El que no puede andar, se sienta.

 

[mrfailure]

I hate to go with the cliche but when our customers run into problems like this (i.e. material not matching certs) it almost always is a Chinese source. While other developing countries steadily improve their quality, China has been unable to do so. My theory is this will not occur until meaningful political reforms take place so that there would not be punishment for rejecting poor quality product prior to shipping.

Aaron Tanzer

http://www.lehightesting.com