info@victesting.com.au

03 51 338 220

Welcome to VicTesting

Welcome to the new website of Victorian Testing and Inspection Services. Founded in 2008, we’re proudly Australian owned and operated.

We’re a support service to the power, oil and gas, construction and fabrication industries, providing a range of mechanical and metallurgical inspection and testing services as required.

Our broad range of services includes:

  • material identification and certification
  • load testing
  • testing of PE/HDPE poly welds and electrofusion sockets
  • pressure vessel inspections
  • weld procedure development, testing and qualification
  • welder qualifications
  • metallurgical services and failure analysis
  • non-destructive testing.

In 2012 we expanded into poly pipe testing – a huge growth area – and, under director Andrew Joiner, we’ve also extended our reach geographically.

We now operate from three sites: Morwell in the Latrobe Valley and the original home of Victorian Testing and Inspection Services; VTS Townsville, which we opened in 2013 and operate as Queensland Testing Services; and Spotswood’s MecTest Laboratories, which we acquired in 2015.

Through affiliation with other specialised quality organisations, we are able to offer a wide range of services throughout Australia and South East Asia.

We’re National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) accredited and have implemented the following systems to ensure compliance with Australian and international standards:

  • Quality System, meeting the requirements of ISO 17025 and 9001
  • OH&S Management System, meeting requirements of AS4801
  • Environmental Management System, meeting requirements of ISO 14001.

For all our services, quality, impartiality and independence are key deliverables, as is customer focus, hence our mission statement:

“To ensure accurate and timely testing and inspection services and to continuously meet or exceed customer expectations through exceptional service.”

Which means we’re on the ball when it comes to prompt delivery of all results and written reports … in short: we’re here to look after you!

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VicTesting takes its trade to Melbourne’s west

Well, we’re pretty chuffed to announce that Victorian Testing and Inspection services has acquired MecTest Laboratories Pty Ltd, based in South Kingsville, in Melbourne’s west.

MecTest is a specialist testing business similar to VicTest that provides specialist services in the field of mechanical and metallurgical testing. It caters to the manufacturing, fabrication, welding, pipe, forging, automotive, rail, structural and import industries.

It was established in 2009 and has many years experience associated with research facilities and commercial testing companies.

Bringing MecTest into the fold means Victorian Testing and Inspection Services, which also operates as Queensland Testing Services in our sunny state, now operates from three sites.

“It means we can service the western suburbs of Melbourne to a greater extent,” owner Andrew Joiner says.

“Previously we’ve had a lot of work out of Melbourne but mostly it’s been from the eastern suburbs due to our location in the Latrobe Valley.

“We’ll really be able to cater to the construction, water and energy businesses in Melbourne’s west and beyond, and we look forward to making some new contacts and really growing the business in that region.”

MecTest’s range of services includes:

  • Tensile testing
  • Impact testing
  • Hardness testing
  • Metallurgical investigations
  • Pressure Vessel Inspection

For more information about MecTest, visit www.mectest.com.au, email info@mectest.com.au or phone 03 9399 2188.

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How VicTesting could have saved the Titanic

Tall tales abound about why the “unsinkable” Titanic did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do, taking 1500 of its 2200 passengers with it to the bottom of the ocean.

The demise of this luxury passenger liner, which hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank in under two hours during its maiden voyage in 1912, is still the subject of controversy more than a century later.

The experts can’t agree on the reasons why.

Was it that the shipbuilders, experiencing a flurry of major projects, used sub-standard steel? Some say yes.

Was it that a good portion of the three million rivets holding the hull together contained high levels of slag, making them fracture prone? Others offer this is as the answer.

Or was it that the steel was too brittle to handle the icy conditions and simply fractured on impact with that damned iceberg? There’s another group weighing in with evidence there.

We reckon the team at Victorian Testing and Inspection Services – if we were on the job at the time – could at least have vouched for the quality (or otherwise) of the materials used in the Titanic’s manufacture.

The Titanic was, at the time of sailing, the largest and most luxurious passenger liner of its time and unfortunately the development and standardisation of the Charpy test was in its infancy.

But just think: if we were on hand, there’d be no controversy to settle more than a century later, no sunken Titanic, no missing passengers … and no teeth-gnashing over Celine Dion’s rendition of My Heart Will Go On, the featured song from the 1997 movie of the same name!

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How a French metallurgist changed all our lives

Turn the clock back to the first day of September in 1865, when a bouncing baby boy was born to a couple in France. Augustin Georges Albert Charpy, later to become a metallurgist and one of France’s three “founding fathers” in the science of alloys, was, no doubt, no more remarkable than any other baby born at the time. But his life’s work would come to impact on all our lives in ways that you might never imagine.

Charpy was the brains behind – we are sorry to state the obvious – the Charpy impact test. The Charpy impact test is a method that continues to be used today, including here at Victorian Testing and Inspection Services.

Initially employed to measure the brittleness of metals, it can also be used to test the relative toughness of other materials under impact, such as ceramics and polymers. It is considered a quick and economical methodology.

Here’s how it works:

  • The material being tested is held securely at each end
  • A standardized striker is attached to the end of a weighted pendulum
  • The pendulum swings and strikes the material being tested, breaking it
  • The energy absorbed by the material is recorded by measuring the decrease in speed of the pendulum arm as it impacts the metal.

Charpy tests are useful for determining whether a metal is brittle or ductile (pliable). A brittle metal will absorb less energy than a ductile metal. Testing under differing conditions, for example, high or low temperatures, will ascertain whether the materials being tested are suitable for the uses to which they are put.

Essentially it is the method used to ensure the quality and reliability of steel products in industries including construction, defence, energy and machinery and equipment manufacturing.

Which means that Augustin Georges Albert Charpy’s influence was very extensive indeed.

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