I visited the MTQ 96 in Birmingham, where I interviewed several exhibitors at their booths. Here are the highlights.
The MTQ'96 (April 16-18) the Testing for Quality Exhibition is a premier UK forum for product promotion, idea exchange and technology transfer. About 200 exhibitors participated, offering demonstrations presenting information on their equipment and services for materials testing, inspection, conditions monitoring and quality control. Many exhibitors shared a booth.
Organizers estimate the total attendance at 3500, about the same as MTQ 94.
Unfortunately, MTQ 96
Dortmund always takes place at the same time every year. Changing the
date or establishing one big European MTQ exhibition would benefit
everyone, but it was announced that
MTQ 98 will be held May 19 - 21, 1998, Contact: Exhibition
Manager Fran Foster
There were also two conferences during the MTQ , the first was the
Technology transfer conference, this was unfortunately canceled and a
new date will be
announced around the end of this year. The second was the 2nd
International Conference of Certification and Standardization in NDT. The
program covered vital issues for inspection companies marketing their
services abroad.
The link below, to the list of all exhibitors, outlines some of the information I found
useful. Please note information provided by exhibitors implies no
endorsement from us.
With that disclaimer out of the way, here are some notes of my personal
impressions of the show.
I noticed that postprocessing with PC software on the market and
interfacing with Krautkraemer's
USD15* flaw detector are commonly
provided by
many companies, and were often demonstrated . A lot of solutions
for assisting on-site inspection were offered; the following list shows
some examples.
Automated on-production-site testing was seen less frequently, but
Unicorn* showed
their 2400 rpm rotary test head for tube testing and 8 transducers
connected
via slip rings; other versions are available too. For ultrasonic signal
evaluation the PC Board Saphir from Lecouer France was used.
Unicorn was founded by people from British Steel and the system was
tested in British Steel plants. At the DeW Systems* booth, we were introduced to some
automated testing for
automotive applications. There were more companies who do automated
testing present, but they did not feature large equipment displays at
their booths, e.g., AEA*
Krautkraemer*. The same for
laboratory immersion tanks -
Matec Instruments* showed one device.
QMI Inc.* USA,with a subsidiary in QMI
Europe BV in NL, displayed
their special solution with airborne ultrasound for many applications,
such as composite testing. Their technology is based on an impressive
scientific background,
shown with the print "NDE Applications of Air-Coupled Ultrasonic
Transducers, W.A. Grandia C.M. Fortunko, Nov. 7-10, 1995 IEEE
International
Ultrasonics Symposium". This technique is also available as a retrofit
with
signal evaluation through a conventional UT system.
Socomate*
displayed multichannel PC based UT equipment , designed
especially for customers who want to build their own customized
solutions. It is even
possible, using software
tools, to create individual menus for operators. Ultrasonic PC boards
were
presented by SMIS* and Lecouer
Electronique.
Standard instruments dominated the show, with a wide range
of products displayed at
Krautkraemer*, Sonatest*, and Stavely*. Panametrics*was in attendance, and concentrated their
presentation on their thickness gauges series.
Here are details of that
conference
Rolls Royce NDT Division with its developed UT series
is not on the market anymore.
DuPont has also left
the NDT market, but its products are still available through NDT Systems
Inc.*.
(Note: * = go directly to
company's
Showcase).
AEA Technology was legally separated from the UK AEA and established
as a
publicly owned company, AEA Technology Plc.*, on
March 1996. Daimler sold out his Fokker* shares, and a new ownership has
formed and will proceed with the company's aircraft business, and
market the Fokker
Bondtest device.
More Information - Table of contents:
**I made an effort not to leave anybody out, but I probably did miss
some service companies. If so, I apologize and will be glad to
supply the information on demand.
© Rolf Diederichs 16. MAy 1996, info@ndt.net
NDTnet