This conference was held in the beautiful Seattle, Washington, with the spirit of "New Horizons on the Pacific". The meeting was marked with a growth in the number of international participants and a surge in interest in the Internet Revolution. The meeting included exhibition entitled "Quality Testing Show", a series of NDT committees' meetings as well as Short Courses. The meeting was concluded with a Banquet where awards were give and new ASNT assignments were announced.
Dr. Tobey Cordell, Chief, NDE Branch, Air Force Materials Lab, Wright Patterson, Ohio, made the Keynote Speech. Dr. Cordell reviewed the applications of NDT throughout the life-cycle of aircraft structures and stressed the vital role of NDT. He pointed out that there is a strong need for NDT technology for aging aircraft and his desire to see expansion of NDT education to a larger number of universities.
The various Conference Sessions covered NDT methods and procedures including conventional as well as emerging ones. A series of sessions were dedicated to the issue of life cycle NDT of Aircraft and the most recently introduced techniques. Examples of such techniques include the laser ultrasonics and magneto-optical imaging (MOI). The capability of scanning large areas of aircraft structures were also reviewed. McDonnell Douglas presented various applications of the recently developed MAUS III and JPL presented the MACS crawler which uses suction caps to adhere to the aircraft structure will scanning it. In addition, the issue of Centralized Certification system received a special attention. NDT of Composite structures was the subject of the Lester Honor Lecture which was given by Dr. Edmund Henneke. Dr. Henneke reviewed his 25 years of involvement in the field at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Internet and World Wide Web were recognized as critical tools that are expected to help ASNT as well as the industry to meet the challenges that are expected to rise in the upcoming millennium. ASNT's new president announced that he will welcome e-mails that will be sent to him. ASNT is trying to show that it cares about its members, their thoughts and expectations.
Dr. Yoseph Bar-Cohen
ASNT Fellow