NDTnet '97 News Archive

'97 News Archive
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December 1997

Critical Argument regarding the European TOFD Draft standard [E]. [D] updated
This lecture led to a lively dispute among the experts of the Ultrasonic Testing Scene. DGZFP Ultrasonic Workshop, NOV 17-18 Saarbrücken.

Listen to Mr. Wuestenberg's statement - in German

Siemens acquires Westinghouse´s fossil power plant business for US$1.5 billion Nov 14, 1997
For general information on KWU see Siemens Power for Generation (KWU) Homepage.

New Products displayed at the Quality Testing Show
What we saw during our walk on the Quality Testing Show at the ASNT Fall Conference in Pittsburgh Oct '97.

Laser Ultrasonics Drive the Nondestructive Testing Market
Laser-based systems will drive ultrasonic testing to the forefront of the nondestructive testing (NDT) market, says an analysis of the US NDT market released by Maxtech International. Two companies have already begun supplying the laser ultrasonic systems to the US market; Textron Systems Div., based in Wilmington, Mass., and UltraOptec in Boucherville, Quebec. Five other companies have laser-based ultrasonic systems in the R&D stage, Maxtech reported in Business World News Briefs July 1997.

$600,000 Saving by using Acoustic Emission
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) saved an estimated $600,000 by using acoustic emission (AE) monitoring in lieu of conventional NDE surface techniques to inspect reactor pressure vessel (RPV) head and internals lifting rigs.

In Situ Inspection of Power Plant Equipment Offers Time & Cost Savings.
The ability to perform periodic equipment and component inspections without dismantling equipment allows operators to keep plants running smoothly. The EPRI's NDE Center provides members with technical support and training on in situ methods.

Nondestructive Testing Tool Reduces Inspection Costs & Plant Outages
EPRI's small punch test is a nondestructive method for in-service evaluation of steel components.

Joint-venture von Philips Industrial X-Ray mit Andrex AS
Die Philips Industrial X-Ray (IXR) GmbH, Hamburg, und Andrex AS, Kopenhagen, Dänemark, wollen ihre Aktivitäten zusammenführen.

LGB-177R NONDESTRUCTIVE TESTING: AN EXPANDING MARKE
A new BCC Business Oppertunity REPORT.

NOTICE: NDTnet CD-ROM ad in ASNT Journal is Incorrect!
Unfortunately, the ASNT editor displayed the incorrect text! We wonder where that text came from; the newsgroup, maybe?

November 1997

IRT provides ultrasonic instruments and systems for the Aircarft and Aerospace Industry
Immersion, squirter or contact inspection of structural elements manufactured from metal and composite materials, with full imaging and data processing capabilities.
The New IRT Hompepage was designed by NDTnet.

Visit Krautkramer at its new Homepage

Two News Related to the Sandia Scanner Survey.
1. Product update: ULTRA IMAGE INTERNATIONAL

2. Product update: ABB AMDATA
Catamaran is the new Scanner from ABB AMDATA.

SMS manufactures NDI equipment for bonded joints and composite materials.
Structural Monitoring System Limited (SMS) newly patented technology is unique in its ability to monitor the integrity of bonded joints continuously, even while the bonded structure is in service and under load.

UltraOptec and Honlet Optical Systems.
HONLET OPTICAL SYSTEMS company of Pfaffenhofen, Germany, acts as the official representative of UltraOptec's European Sales Division. For more information contact Michel Honlet honlet@t-online.de. See also Laser UT Article on the UltraOptec Homepage

Imagine3D Ultrasonic Raytracing Software
UTEX Sclentific Instruments has introduced Imagine3D, a new ultrasonic raytracing software program.

NAARP News is published quarterly by the Airworthiness Assurance R & D Branch of FAA
Current Issue July-September 1997.

Jet Engine Scanner
The Xactex Jet Engine Scanner uses eddy current andultrasonic inspection methods to detect tiny defects in jet engine cores.

Ultrasonic Inspection Helps Utility Ensure Quality of Joints
Oklahoma Natural Gas uses a combination of sight and sound to ensure a quality joint during butt fusion of plastic pipe.

Eddy current detection and quantification of disbonds on composite helicopter rotor blades
Dr. Xavier E. Gros has been involved for the past 5 years on multiple non-destructive testing (NDT) projects. He is the author of the first book dedicated to NDT Data Fusion. We are pleased to receive Xavier E. Gros's NDT Homepage for the new NDTnet'97 CD-ROM.

JOB OFFER: Imasonic is looking for a new Sales Engineer
See their homepage for more details.

October 1997

15 Ultrasonic Patents
We retrieved some recent Patents through the Micropatent Patent Database.

A very fast method to determine total wall thickness of a pipe that has process fluid inside
A profile density measurement has been developed by Lixi, Inc. This new technique converts the absorption to a linear response after calibration of a pipe.

Database of Thickness Measurement Applications
The Panametrics NDT Division is continuously updating their Homepage. There you can find this comprehensive Database of Application Notes and much more.

Digital Ultrasonic Thickness Gauges for Non-Destructive Testing of metal and plastics.
The Cygnus Product Profile provides a full product range to suit all applications, Intrinsic Safety, Underwater (both diver and ROV deployed), Harsh Environments and datalogging.

QMSystems has also introduced a line of microprocessor based hand-held ultrasonic thickness gages
The gages are suitable for the measurement of the thickness of various materials where access may be limited to only one side. Applications include quality inspection of machined parts and corrosion surveys of piping and other critical components. QMSystems - formerly known as Rompas NDE and Ultrasonic Industries.

Preform Thickness Gauge PTG5000
TopWave International, Inc. announced a new automatic measuring instrument for material concentricity of PET and PET/PEN preforms.

A Tank Crawler System collects ultrasonic thickness readings.
The Automated Remote Tank Inspection System determines the shell thickness, corrosion, and structural integrity of tank shells and other hard-to-reach areas without erecting scaffolding or inspection platforms. Longview Inspection Examination Techniques.

You can submit your Web Page for the NDTnet '97 CD-ROM
All Internet sites with high quality good content can submit their pages for inclusion in the CD-ROM. All commercial sites can add their pages and become CD-ROM sponsors. Our CD-ROM makes a great corporate gift. Stick your company label on!

Rolf Diederichs' Newspaper Interview: "Auch im Internet gibt es Ländergrenzen" [German]
"Also on the Internet are Country Borders". A German Newspaper interviewed Rolf Diederichs and published an article about his experiences of developing NDTnet on the Internet - now in the second Year.

September 1997

Crack Depth Meter measures oblique cracks
KARL DEUTSCH's new crack depth gauge RMG 4015 measures crack depths on workpieces of iron, ferrous and austenitic steels and can also be used for cracks in copper, brass, aluminium and other non-ferrous metals.

Vist A2MS on NDTnet
Our expertise area is Applied Acoustics, Materials and Systems is acoustic control and characterisation of environnement and material. Services are consultation, studies, research and development in the acoustics fiels like ultrasonics non destructiv testing, vibrations, ... Our customers are: Manufacturer, internationals industrials firms, ....

Automatic Leakage testing use the ultrasonic bubble detection method
Ultrasound gas bubble detectors can be utilised in any application where the component to be tested can be immersed in a liquid. Technical leaflet

How are NDT manufacturers doing
Please support NDTnet and take a few minutes and fill out this survey. Also you can win an UT'96 CD-ROM !

Neuerscheinungen bei der DGZFP
Neue ZfP Literaturbände von Seminar-Vorträgen können bei der DGZfP-Geschäftsstelle angefordert werden.

August 1997

The May 1997 NTIAC Newsletter
Published frequently by the Nondestructive Testing Information Analysis Center.

New Book: Ultrasonic Transducer Engineering
And read 29 abstracts of this SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3037

New report shows 1.5 billion dollar NDT market is rapidly changing.
This study analyzes the nondestructive testing (NDT) equipment market in the United States and abroad..

The NDT UPDATE February 1997 SAMPLE ISSUE
Find inside the Industry News Topic 10.2% Growth for Ultrasonic Business
and the Technology News Topic from the NASA Lewis Research Center: Detecting Flaws with Embedded Sensors ->.

July 1997

SMS - The patented Structural Monitor System
The SMS System offers inexpensive, on-line monitoring of the formation and development of fatigue-related and other cracking of the critical parts of a structure the integrity of bonded joints. The System can detect even microscopic cracks developing under stress at the surface of the component being monitored. Learn more about our new Exhibitor on SMS Homepage or see SMS on NDTnet

New German guidelines to wall thickness measurement - will be available in English
The German Society for Non-Destructive Testing (DGZfP) has now published 'Guidelines for Thickness Measurement with Ultrasound' which introduces the reader to the subject with a series of different techniques and examples of applications. The 137-page book contains a large number of illustrations and extensive explanations.

AT&T Bell Labs scientists create "T-Rays" to see inside objects
"T-Ray" imaging has potential applications in a wide range of fields, including package inspection, manufacturing process control, environmental monitoring, and non-destructive materials evaluation. This technology is still in the R&D stage and not yet a product. AT&T Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm of AT&T, the global communications and computer company.

Workshop explores testing and calibration
An optical testing instruments and calibration services workshop took place at the University of Reading (UK).

QUALITY CONTROL FOR ADVANCED MATERIALS AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES
A Project of the Automated Production Technology Division at National Institute of Standards and Technology.

European Networks for Structural Integrity
The SCI Unit is operating agent of several international co-operations called European Networks involving plant owners, plant manufacturers, service vendors, Inspection, Integrity assessment, Regulators, R&D organisations ...

Nondestructive Evaluation of Materials and Structures
Southwest Research Institute 1996 Annual Report.

NDT application: Ceramic valves soon available in series produced cars?
A joint project with Adam Opel AG, Daimler Benz AG, CeramTec AG, and three further Fraunhofer Institutes (Produktionstechnologie IPT Production Technology, Werkstoffmechanik IWM Mechanics of Materials, and Zerstörungsfreie Prüfverfahren IZFP (Non Destructive Testing).

June 1997

Robots check the inner walls of pipelines
Siemens has developed a generation of pipe crawler robots that can be equipped with features such as a CCD color camera for optical inspection of pipes' inner surfaces. Other possible versions offer attachments for cleaning, milling, polishing, welding, ultrasound testing and eddy current testing.

New Book: Ultraschallprüfung - Grundlagen und industrielle Anwendung
By Volker Deutsch, Michael Platte, Manfred Vogt, Springer Verlag 1997

Ultrasonic Inspection of Tubes by encircling phased-array search unit
A new Profile by Framatome

Meeting of the chairmen of regional DGZfP groups - [Deutsch]
In January 1997 a chairmen meeting of DGZfP's 19 regional groups was held in Berlin.

Regional Groups of the DGZfP
In 1996 150 meetings were held with 198 lectures which were visited by 3440 people.

May 1997

Recent Contract Awards in Nondestructive Testing
NTIAC Web Site

Neutrons Tackle Materials Stress
NIST researchers expect that an important result of this research will be development of a Reference Standard for testing and calibrating portable X-ray and ultrasonic instruments, which could then be used in the field to measure stress in airframes, railroad rails, or pipelines.

Inspecting Pipes
--NIST researchers have received a patent for a new method of measuring wall thickness and detecting flaws (such as cracks, and corrosion) in natural gas pipelines by using ultrasound. NIST is working with the Southwest Research Institute, under a contract with the Gas Research Institute, to show the practicality of the method.

Visualization of ultrasonic measurements of cylinder thickness
The NASA Lewis Research Center's (G-VIS lab) Graphics & VISualization laboratory.

Technology Opportunity Bulletin Micromachined Air-Coupled Capacitance Transducer
A joint project of Non-Contact Imaging of a Bonded Aluminum Lap-Joint together with the non-destructive evaluation (NDE) group at the Institute for Aerospace Research (IAR)

April 1997

SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering ^HOT

Home Page Review by Rolf Diederichs.
Click here! Don't miss it - it's a great NDT/UT resource.

Ultrasonic thickness gauge for multilayer plastic fuel tanks

An interference method using ultrasonic tone-bursts employs a frequency progression wherein a frequency producing a minimum in the reflection echo from the barrier layer identifies the thickness of the barrier layer. A new US Patent from Ford Motor C.
(Background information: "Automated In-Mould Ultrasonic Wall-Thickness Measurement" by Rolf Diederichs.

Research Developments in the Specification of Adhesives

A study to determine accurately the potential of adhesives was funded by the Body Research Department at Ford and ACME. This measures acoustic wave propagation parameters from which mechanical moduli are derived as functions of frequency.
(More through FIZ Technik, Database Web Automotive Information and News - Practice File).

Resonant Inspection

Magnaflux now offers a patented new NDT technology that was initially developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory. Technically, it's resonant ultrasound spectroscopy, but its simply called Resonant Inspection (RI).
(More through Magnaflux on IndustryNet)

Ultrasonic Resonance Spectroscopy for Conrete Structures

New inspection equipment has been built and tested which has been fitted inside a rugged, portable personal computer to be used in conditions ranging from laboratory to construction site. The project aims to evaluate the new techniques on pre-cast concrete units and concrete bridge structures etc.. The project is led by Instrumentation Innovation Ltd and sponsored by the EC's Brite-EuRam programme and PSTI.

An intelligent "pig" tests pipelines around the world

Research News from the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (FhG) .

March 1997

Try Us FREE for 3 Months! in the NDTnet Exhibition

Thickness measurement in the production line. A new Profile by Krautkraemer.

Advances in pulse-echo testing of concrete Cambridge Ultrasonics and the Institut für Massivbau, Darmstadt are looking for other organisations to join a project and develop a second generation of ultrasonic instruments for testing concrete.

'Sounding Out' Improved Materials An inexpensive acoustic wave transducer developed by NIST mechanical engineers soon may make it easier for researchers to decide if new composite materials or film coatings have the right mechanical properties for specific applications.

The "European NDT-Innovation Diploma" has been established to reward the best innovative, experimental or methodological contribution in the field of NDT.

The FIZ Technik Database is available through the World Wide Web.

International Pipeline Consortium Targets $5.3 MILLION for Pipeline Inspection Technology.
Four U.S., Canadian, and British organizations have formed a $5.3 million venture to develop additional ultrasonic tools for detecting stress corrosion cracking in pipelines. (9 Dec 96 NEWSWIRE)

Febr 1997

Ultrasonic SALAMANDER detects cracks in Pipelines. Published in a sample issue of The Chemical Engineering Journal as seen on NewsNet - a great News Database.

NKK enhances its on-line flaw detection system Japanese steelmaker NKK Corp. has developed a new on-line ultrasonic flaw detection system that uses chirp wave pulse compression technology to dramatically enhance the signal-to-noise (SN) ratio in ultrasonic flaw detection, significantly improving the ability to detect flaws in steel products.

Methods for Flaw Detection During Welding A collaborative research project funded by the EC under the BRITE-EURAM II "Industrial and Materials Technologies" Programme.

The GE Research and Development Center reports on their Technical Highlights and Applications.

In-service flaw detection techniques for forecasting lifetimes under varied service conditions NDE Program at the Ames Laboratory, U.S. Dep. of Energy, Ames, Iowa.

An Integrated Testing System for non-destructive Diagnosis of Microstructure and Residual Stresses (ANNOUNCED) EUREKA PROJECT

Ultrasonic Testing of Tube - Phased Array Technique - No Mechanical Rotation (ANNOUNCED) EUREKA PROJECT

A new excellent NDT Homepage from the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

A postdoctoral position is available immediately. The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg.

Jan 1997

U.S. Patent Database Access
We introduce the U.S. Patent Advanced Search Page

Measurement techniques for on-line investigation during production
News from the Homepage of the German Plastics Institute

CORDIS CD-ROM
Containing all the information from each of nine on-line CORDIS databases, the CD-ROM is a valuable resource for those needing information on Community research and development.

Sandia National Laboratories -Survey Summary and Best Practices
Direct access to NDT highlights: Inspection Techniques for Aging Aircraft Inspection and Non-Destructive Evaluation Capabilities for Process Monitoring