The project has used a set of specimens containing controlled defects to measure the reliability of a number of present inspection techniques, using the concept of inspection validation. The programme has developed a number of evolving techniques that possibly offer more reliability and/or more cost-benefit to the inspection community. These have been assessed in the same validation environment. This has permitted a direct comparison of the present techniques, and resulted in objective statements of what defect conditions can be reliably detected, where there have been improvements, and also where further work should now be focused.
In parallel, the issue of non-destructive testing (NDT) inspection procedures has been addressed. It has been shown that two new procedures, developed under this programme (and therefore termed 'BRITE/EuRAM procedures'), and which aimed to amalgamate and improve on specific inspection problems, are superior to present practice. This improvement has been quantified through validation. The work has also provided guidelines on how the writing of procedures may be used to increase the reliability of any inspection technique.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Full Text
- Introduction
- Technical Description
- Development of Evolving Technologies
- Development and Validation of Standardised Inspection Procedures
- Development of Manufacturing Methods for Realistic Test Specimens
- Implementation of Inspection Validation
- Results
- The Results of the Validation Work on Evolving Inspection Technologies (Table 1 & 2)
- Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- References
- The Results of the Validation Work on Evolving Inspection Technologies (Table 1 & 2)
