Last month's 83 newsgroup messages showed amazing improvement in terms of content, so our newsgroup review is a little longer than usual.

X-ray was a popular topic in November - the message at 1998/11/10 x-ray testing of plastics asked for information, no one has answered yet, can you help?

1998/11/10 Post-doc position in ultrasonics, specifically in the development and application of air-coupled UT for aerospace applications - is this job for you? Some other jobs have been posted as well.

At 1998/11/02 replies have been posted for Re: NDEs for underground water pipes (e.g., existence of leaks, significant pits, ...), with some suggestions of different NDT methods to use (RFEC, AE). Another question on radiography "Sensitivity of graphs" also got some help.

1998/11/19 Web-based Science of NDE Inspection ..., posted by Sam Wormley CNDE IASTATE. A team developing web-based materials relating to nondestructive testing and evaluation. Sam Wormley writes 'These web pages incorporate user-interactive Java applets to engage the students in active learning. These pages, far from being completed are considered to be a living dynamic work that can be updated over time to improve this NDE/NDT educational offering.' I tried to use it, but I didn't have the right plug-in. Anyway, this is a work in progress, let's keep checking back.

1998/11/22 Chloride stress corrosion cracking, this web page announcment pointed to an interesting article of a recent study.

1998/11/22 Chloride stress corrosion cracking, this web page announcement pointed to an interesting article of a recent study.

1998/11/30 Acquisition Opportunity: NDT / NDE Company $7 Million This message woke me up! Not that I have that kind of money, but what was behind this message? Here are some excerpts: "The Company provides NDT/NDE services a variety of industries throughout the world, including the majority of those industries cited above. In addition to employing commonly used NDT/NDE methods, the Company is well recognized as a developer and provider of specialized NDT/NDE instruments on a worldwide basis. One of the primary strengths of the Company is its use of technology to enhance the NDT/NDE process. The shareholders are prepared to accept $7.0 million cash for the shares of the Company. A full Divestiture Document is currently being completed and will be available to qualified parties." Our little newsgroup is going WALL STREET!

For more information select a list of all posts via the Show Post button below.

Keywords of most informative Posts: · Remote Field Eddy Current RFEC · electromagnetic Tube Testing? · electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)? · Pancake coil · NDT for underground water pipes · Used equipment · Advertising

LÊ-BAILLY Minh-Quang posted to the newsgroup: Why there are no more message on this group ? What's the matter ? I share his concerns, but the small number of posts (51) is not the main problem, the quality of posts is. 51 posts with legitimate content would be fine, but fully 30% of the posts are blatant advertising. Let's all try to reduce the "propaganda to content" ratio!
Rolf Diederichs

For more information select a list of all posts via the Show Post button below.

September's newsgroup traffic was very light, with about 40 messages - far lower than the 100+ messages of September '97, and most of the 40 were Product or Web Site announcements. It seems that this fall's daily business leaves little room for newsgroup discussion. The following graph shows the newsgroup traffic of 1998 versus 1997.

For more information select all August posts via the Show Post button below.

During the Summer break only about 40 messages have been posted to the NDT Newsgroup. Nevertheless, some of those turened out an interesting information. Good references on Barkhausen noise was provided and Dr. Ulrich Mletzko brought some light in the measuring problem and the calibaration of Clad Thickness.

Talking on this month aircraft topic, we searched the newsgroup archive, and we could find Courses related to NDT of Aircraft.

For more information select all August posts via the Show Post button below.

Only 46 messages of last month on the NDT newsgroup, there is not much to talk about - just Summer break! A few business opertunities could be found, for instant "Subject: Pipe inpection for seamless stainless steel pipes with small diameter" or "Subject: Ultrasonic euipment".

The "Subject: Announcement - New E-Mail Discussion List - AI for NDT" lead to a princple discussion if this branch of an NDT related discussion group is really needed or make.

For more information select all July posts via the Show Post button below.

76 messages were posted last month on the NDT newsgroup. There were too few in-depth discussions and too many advertisements.

An Assistant Librarian of the ASNT Headquarters tried to help with "Check out ASNT's web site, www.asnt.org." (Re: Portable gaussmeter, Bambi Arter 1998/06/29). We had received that pointer before, and we did check it out. After spending a good deal of time browsing the site, and using the search we were unable to locate any information of value, and we posted that result to the newsgroup. It is disappointing to us that Web Site marketers respond to serious newsgroup queries with unhelpful self-promotion.

We tried to keep the newsgroup informed with our posts on the Railroad topic. One poster was looking for a certain NDT manufacturer of Gamma-ray crawlers. More evidence of just how important an Internet presence can be for NDT companies. We should all make the time to read the newsgroup to keep ourselves well-informed.

In April we had 80 messages, however this time many messages contained lot of spam, (make.money.fast, sex, etc). It seems that some companies have been motivated to post 'product information' after our discussion in the previous month on "Advertisng YES or NO". Unfortunately most of the products were not direct related to NDT. If that will increase we will soon get PC's offered under the umbrella of being products for NDT purpose. That situation is an evidence how tolerance can be misused.


For more information select all April posts via the Show Post button below.

After only 65 messages in February we were up to about 100 messages in March!
Before searching the newsgroup on Weld topics, as usually we'll start looking more close to last month topics.

Here are the most informative messages from March 1998:

• Ultrasonic Examination of Butt Fused Welds in PE Pipe
  Jeff Phillips seek for any articles available.
  For this review he had send us a message what he found of interest.

• ultrasonic testing of copper 1998/03/24
  Tom Nelligan from Panametrics posted his advise.

• NDT Job at Reading University, England 1998/03/25
  This message lead us to comprehensive information on Wire Rope NDT.
  See also the Rope Research Group Homepage

  NDT certification - Need assistance on job exploration
  The replies talked about experiences of career in NDT. The career can take you to variety of places. Evenmore we could read "... My last trip the pilots had no work for a month so spent the time sun bathing."

• Needed-NDT system for steel scuba tanks (4)
  Robert (Rocky) A. Day answered correctly that in range of the specified cost ($500 to $1000) it is not possible to offer a system. Some other messages followed up thsi inquire.

• Announcements? (9)
  Is there a concensus opinion on the use of this newsgroup for announcing new products? Are these announcements appreciated, or are they regarded as unwanted clutter? - Doug Breeze 1998/03/27
  This delicate topic was discussed already under the former topic Unwanted adverts 1997/05/10
  by Ed Ginzel, Mark Friesel, Paul Davidson, Devang/Jignesh Jariwala, Will Holt , Florin Jurcovici, Marty Jones, Rolf Diederichs, Bruce Spedding.
  This time the understanding of this discussion may be: "Singular, short advertising: YES. Repeated and extended advertising: NO". However we are concerned that this encouragement will lead to a overwhelming of blatant advertising posting. Let us look close to what Marty Jones wrote in his message at 1997/05/15:
  "In keeping with the tradition of sci.engr, on-topic sales material and advertisements are acceptable within this newsgroup under the condition that embedded within it is useful, non-product-specific and free information. Examples of such advertisements would include: new or improved textbooks and software; new or updated WWW sites; course or lecture announcements; and job listings. Advertising which requests that no Email replies be made to their postings, uses false Email return addresses, is blatantly off topic, or promotes illegal schemes or purposes is unwelcome. Responses to inappropriate advertisements should be made directly to the senders and their service providers and not posted to the newsgroup."

See below for more worthwhile March '98 keywords:

Borescopes used for NDT, Ultrasonic Examination of Butt Fused Welds in PE Pipe, Philips X-ray diffractometer, Acoustic Emission on Rock, Fe contaminations, X-ray equipment for ' real time' imaging, Underground corrosion measurement by polarization, NDT inspection for insulated pipe >30" diameter, NDT testing of railroad axles, IR Holography Interferometry, Fatigue Specimen Preparation, Sub sea inspection, O.D. Waterwall Scanning, NDT certification, Alternating Current Field Measurement, Ultrasonic testing of composites, Conferences, Jobs, Ultrasonic/ NDT of concrete, FS Big torque multiplier with reaction, Piping Systems and Pipe Support Inspection, Quality control software, Infrared Supplier Needed, Flaw detection techniques, boiler tube inspections, Heat Exchanger Mapping Software, Inspection of tile-lines tanks.
For more information: Show all March Posts via the 'Show Post' button.

Newsgroup Resources for this month NDTnet focus
200 Matches for search weld* in the NDT Newsgroup from 1996 to March 1998

This month we review about 65 messages posted last month to the NDT Newsgroup.

But first we tried to find information on EMAT, for this month's topic on NDTnet.
We used the Newsgroup search - not very successfully!
The search results returned only 27 Matches in the NDT Newsgroup from 1995 to present.
Even worse, of these only 6 dealt with topics were more or less useful, see as follows:

• RE:Cont./On-Line NDT Monitoring - meagh 1995/09/19
  
• EMAT (Electromagnetic acoustic testing) - Randy Dawson 1995/11/07
  
• EMAT equipment - HANDS G. GODFREY G100316 - SKFCCM01 1996/01/04
  
• Re: high temp. ultrasonic testing
  
• Stress testing in railway wheels - Rolf Diederichs 1997/06/04
  
• Re: Residual Stress Measurement. - Rolf Diederichs 1998/01/22
  

Here are the most interesting messages from Feb 1998,
so the answers were also very useful:

• FPI Reliability Data
  Does anyone have probability of detection data and associated reliability for FPI?
• Micro holes for UT standards
  drills for 0.025mm to 0.125mm in 0.025mm increments.
• Looking for equipment for locating rebar in concrete
  
• Eddy Currents and Inconel
  Inconel bars we have put fatigue cracks and EDM notches in.
• Acoustic Emission
  resumes in AE,UT,ET general Mechanics, Civil structures, material science etc.
  Looking mostly for Ph.Ds and MS degrees. At the moment 4-openings exist.
• Tank Floor Scanning
  ...Is there anyway not to remove the GRP lining ....

See below for more worthwhile Feb '98 topics:

surface roughness measurement
Beta Tester
ACOUSTIC MICROSCOPES AVAILABLE
scratch on a pipe detecting
NDT of plastic pipes + thickness testing of stellite 6 hardfacing
Testing Method for locating disbond in tubing
ET for ID examination of carbon steel tubes
NDT INSPECTION FOR INSULATED PIPE
in service inspection
Symposium

This month we review 87 messages posted in January '98 to the NDT Newsgroup. The noise was very low so you may click on "Show all January Posts" and brows by yourself. Here are the keywords of some most interesting messages: Pitting corrosion, Thermoelasticity, non-contact squirter inspection, Viewers for radiography, Call for Papers, second hand NDT equipment, Inspection of Fiberglass Piping systems, Residual Stress Measurement, infrared thermography.

This month we extracted 24 topics of total 70 messages posted in December to the NDT Newsgroup. We deleted only 20 irrelevant messages like advertisements or errors. Here are some examples of very interesting messages: AE testing during spark machining? [3], Risk Based Inspection of an AST [13], water treatment [14] , Think Thermally, newsletter for infrared thermography [20], and Pitting corrosion of water lines [22].

1. Maraging Steel
2. Re: Ground probing radar
3. AE testing during spark machining?
4. Used Scientific Equipment On-Line
5. Airworthiness Assurance Center of Excellence (AACE)
6. Re: Pipe Wall thickness
7. ET standards?
8. Distance and thickness measurements by eddy-current method
9. Critical Argument regarding the European TOFD Draft standard
10. echo sounder system
11. First Call For Papers - QNDE 1998
12. JSNDI Spring Conference
13. Risk Based Inspection of an AST
14. water treatment
15. Magnetic Particle Coil Testing Technique?
16. RE: water treatment
17. helical scan
18. Reference on elec.magn. sensing of conductivity of solution
19. 13th U.S. National Congress of Applied Mechanics
20. Ann: Think Thermally, newsletter for infrared thermography
21. ASTM E 1742
22. Pitting corrosion of water lines
23. Employment Opp.