The Largest Open Access Portal of Nondestructive Testing (NDT)

A State of the Art instrument using the tap testing technique ‘The Woodpecker - WP-632AM’ developed by Mitsui was used to compare detectability of manufactured defects (flat bottom holes) in Perspex and aluminium specimens/coupons. A modern infrared camera the ‘T440’ developed by FLIR was also employed to perform Thermography tests on the same specimens. In this paper the authors present a comparison of the test results obtained using the above mentioned NDT techniques. The two instruments proved to be very user friendly, require very little set up time and practically no surface preparation on the specimens was required. Testing the specimens, using either technique with its respective instrument, is performed rapidly and both instruments provide instantly, permanent records of the results.

This presentation was an invited talk in the ICNDT Workshop „Use of Social Media by NDT Societies and Certification Bodies – sharing best practice, Thu 16 June, 09:00-11:00 Saal 22, 2nd floor.

Online exhibitions also referred to as a virtual exhibition or B2B platform are generally targeted at an industry and people involved or interested in that industry. This article describes how participation in an online exhibition can be a great way to advertise to a target market and create brand awareness. Online exhibitions promote products or services to a broader group that may have little or no knowledge of your products and services. Depending on the type of business, product and market testing can be carried out at online exhibitions to gain industry or general opinion about your offering. It is important to ensure that the people who are visiting the online exhibition are your target group. The major advantage of a good online exhibitions over simple directories (Yellwo Pages) is that it offers much more than your business name, address or telephone number. Exhibitiors can add press releases, products or information about their business. Number of companies adhering to online exhibitions is increasing day by day. Seeing the potential and cost effectiveness many more companies will move for the online exhibitions in the near future. The article explains essential features that an online exhibition should provide so that visitors and exhibitiors have got a good experience from it. A basic structure for a flexible, easy-to-use exhibition format is introduced.

Assessment and identification of delamination damage in composite materials is necessary for safe operation of modern composite-based aircraft components. Nowadays, numerical simulations provide increasingly reliable predictions of delamination damage growth. However, these simulations often incorporate simplified or idealized models of the initial damage. Authors created a software-based method of extraction of the actual damage and of mapping of the damage to a finite element model. The software utilizes ultrasonic C-Scan images for the mapping process. In the paper, an improvement to the image processing algorithm used in the method is presented. In essence, a metric for the quality of processing has been introduced – this metric will be used for optimal selection of processing parameters in future versions of the software. Simple, impact tested composite coupons were used as an input for the method. Results of the processing, including calculation of the quality metric are presented in the paper.

Sampling Phased Array, also called Total Focusing Method is known for about 10 years. This technique uses Full Matrix Captured ultrasonic data which is transmitted and received from several incidence points within the same phased array probe. This data yields an ultrasonic image of very high resolution. New portable and rugged Phased Array Flaw Detectors are now available having this signal processing method onboard. After a short description of this rather new technique, we are pleased to present our experiences in practical applications on welded joints. Our goal is to achieve a reproducible sizing of imperfections in the image plus the evaluation of the recorded data by using additional analysis software. This is also possible, even for flat reflectors not lying perpendicular to the typical beam direction. Our practical results gained from welded joints with imperfections (lack of fusion) using conventional Phased Array will be compared to Sampling Phased Array scans, and a possible alternative to standard echo amplitude evaluation will be discussed.

Pneumatic components represent an important part of many technical devices in transportation, mechanical, automotive and power engineering etc. The proper function of these components decides not only on the correct function of production equipment, for example, but in many cases influences also the safety of passengers, operators etc. The diagnosis of these systems is currently based mainly on monitoring of vibrations, possibly also are verified devices on the principle of ultrasound. Possibilities of these methods have proven to be inadequate, less sensitive and largely unreliable. Another diagnostic procedure that is being tested is the noise analysis of activity of diagnosed devices. Also, this method proves to be unsuitable for practical use in operational diagnostics. However, the required new methods of increasing sensitivity speed and efficiency of NDT, their automation, minimizing the human factors and the reduction of operating costs. Ideally, it is the possible to consider a combination of acoustic emission with other methods, thereby ensuring high sensitivity and reliability at the same time. The paper presents the latest results obtained in the course of the project Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, which aims to create a new diagnostic system for checking the function of pneumatic valves using acoustic emission. There are compared the records of the AE signal from the undamaged pneumatic cylinders and similar entries from cylinders containing artificial defects. Records of signals are monitored by modern analysers DAKEL IPL with full sampling of the signal. Based on the analysis of large data sets are selected suitable AE signal parameters, which can be used for more accurately diagnostics of condition of tested devices which could be used for constructing of analyser for testing of pneumatic devices.