Investigation of pin-hole leaks in stainless steel water pipes

Fluids are transported, using austenitic stainless steel (SS) pipes of 3XX series to prevent corrosion products from contaminating them. Sudden failure of these pipes during operation may lead to high downtime costs and disastrous consequences. Repeated and similar leakage failure on SS pipes of 304 grade has been reported from many installations. The paper discusses and analyzes the many reasons for such failures and presents the investigations that were carried out on one such incident of the failure of pipes, which were used for circulating water. It also recommends the corrective actions to avoid recurrence of pipe leaks.