Pressure Testing Help/Recommendations

[elopez]

Hi All,

I am looking to set up a pressure test for a product that I manufacture. For all intents and purposes, the product is a seam welded container. Essentially, the test would consist of attaching compressed air to the product and increasing the internal pressure until failure. I want to be able to get an ultimate pressure at failure. I have also noticed that the rate at which air is introduced to the container greatly affects the ultimate strength of the seal. The goal is to have a consistent and repeatable test that I can perform regularly to check weld integrity.

I have looked into pressure regulators as well as max pressure gauges but can't seem to easily find what I am looking for. Failure usually occurs between 5-25 psi, so I would require a fairly precise instrument with some granularity. Most of the gauges and regulators I am finding are 1-100 psi or 1-300 psi which is overkill for what I am trying to accomplish.

Am I in the right direction, and I should just keep looking? Would greatly appreciate being pointed in the right direction.

 

[MintJulep]

For tests to failure you should do hydrostatic testing, not pneumatic.

Unless your thing is really small.

 

[pierreick]

Hi,
Stay safe and perform hydraulic test!
I have in mind the passing of a mechanic performing compressed air test on a HX.
Pierre

 

[geesaman.d]

For that amount of pressure I'd consider a cylinder pressed down by a weight to reach to various test pressures. Maybe have a sliding weight on an arm that to adjust cylinder force like an old-school pressurized grease cup.

 

[elopez]

Thanks for the information all. I will look into it further!

 

[Prometheus21]

Hydrostatic testing for pressure testing. Pneumatic testing for leakage-testing (which I assume you need to perform as well due to checking the weld integrity).

For leakage-testing: At those low pressures I would recommend using 8-16 bar (116-232 psi) inlet pressures (if using cylinder/ cylinder bundle) - or a constant line pressure of 6 bar (87 psi) (typical output for some air compressors - remember oil filter if you need that) attached to a pressure regulator with a maximum working pressure of around 3 bar (44 psi) and with a high resolution to allow for fine tuning of the workin pressure (your test pressure).