The qualification will be performed under the requirement of the Swedish Qualification Centre (SQC) in September 2000 and January 2001.

Previous to the SQC Qualification, practical demonstration on scanner's performance have to be carried out for the project RTID, through the Factory Acceptance Tests (FAT), as well as open practical demonstrations on inspection procedure's performance within the Procedure Acceptance Tests (PAT) of the project RTID.

The Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) areas included in the contract scope are:

• RPV cover head: Circumferential and Longitudinal welds
• RPV bottom dome: Circumferential and Longitudinal welds
• Inlet-Outlet Main Circulation Nozzles: Nozzle to Shell welds, Inner Radius and Nozzle to Pipe welds.

Due to the great variety of inspection areas configurations, a total of 8 inspection procedures will be qualified to be applied by 3 different mechanical scanners: WIND and DOME TRACKER from Tecnatom and by the 5 Station-Main Circulation scanner owned by the Swedish NPPs, together with the Ultrasonic Data Acquisition and Signal Processing System (DAS): SUMIAD/MIDAS/MASERA NT from Tecnatom. A total of 8 DAS operators and 8 DAS Analysts from Tecnatom and GE will be certified within the qualification process.

Specification and manufacturing of flawed test specimens by RTID are part of the activities of the project to perform the open practical demonstration (PAT) for the inspection procedures. Additionally, a partially full scale mock-up of RPV cover head and bottom dome will be designed and manufactured by Tecnatom to perform the required FATs.

Technical Justifications are required in the qualification process to provide additional evidences on the reliability of the inspection system (scanners, procedures and personnel), following the approach of the European Network for Inspection Qualification (ENIQ).

A detailed description of the above activities and inspection systems is provided in this paper.