Nondestructive Testing & Research

Mobile Darkrooms

Bringing The Test To You
Mobile Darkrooms

Bringing The Test To You

RNDT, Inc is expanding their reach into onsite NDT procedures. Demand in the NDT field is growing for more companies to operate onsite. Within the past year, RNDT has added two fully functional mobile darkrooms to perform onsite methods of testing. These methods include:

RNDT currently has 13 mobile darkrooms with the plans to add more in 2017. A mobile darkroom is a custom-made fiberglass work truck body that is mounted in the bed of a crew cab, one-ton pickup truck. Darkrooms are wired much like a camper would be wired. Allowing the technician to run any device that requires power. Power can be accessed by either wired (Plug-in) connection or on a portable generator located in the bed of each truck.

Mobile Darkrooms

The darkroom is just that, a darkroom that allows technicians to process radiographic film. The term “darkroom” is used because processing radiographic film is almost identical to processing photographic film. White light cannot be exposed to the film prior to processing or it will ruin the image. Each darkroom is equipped with red lighting that allows the technician to see what they are doing without damaging the film. The darkrooms also have several tanks that contain the chemicals necessary for processing film.

The darkrooms also serve as mobile offices while in the field. They are equipped with computers and printers to handle all reporting necessary to the inspection being performed. Each of these truck darkrooms are identical, however, technicians are able to adjust them to fit their needs.

Trailer Darkrooms

RNDT also has 2 trailer type darkrooms. Each trailer serves the same purpose as the truck version, but with much more rooms to work. They are separated into 2 rooms, with one serving as the office area and the other as the darkroom area. These are used only for long-term projects where the darkroom can stay in the same place.

Darkroom Trailer

It is essential to have a mobile darkroom to perform industrial radiography in the field. Some industries are unable to move equipment around that need tested; mobile darkrooms are allowing these tests to come to them. Mobile darkrooms are built for rugged terrain and allow them to be moved to areas that are remote. As an example, mobile darkrooms are being utilized in oil and gas projects and pipelines that are completely in the woods, up and down mountains or anywhere throughout the Northeast U.S. terrain.

With more opportunities with gas and pipelines, RNDT will expand. Mobile darkrooms allow RNDT to be competitive in the field and working directly with remote companies and on job sites.

Frederick Raco, Jr., President at RNDT, Inc. said, “It doesn’t seem that long ago that we bought our first mobile darkroom and had four employees. We now have 13 mobile darkrooms, 33 employees, and some days we could use more. Having the mobile darkrooms are essential to the growth of our company. Being a service based company, we can only handle as many daily jobs as the number of mobile darkrooms we have. I know times are good when I walk through our laboratory and there are no trucks parked in there. Which means all our trucks are being utilized on field jobs. As of late, this has been the case on most days. Therefore, it’s only logical that for us to handle more work we will need to keep adding more mobile darkrooms. This in turn means we will need more technicians to work them and more equipment to outfit them. This is the basic growth process of RNDT.”

 

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