ABSTRACT. The use of Reflectivity Curves and the Distance Gain Size (DGS) method are useful techniques for the sizing of discontinuities using Ultrasonics. The principal works on the theoretical relationship between the signal of a reflector at a specific distance and amplitude when compared to a known reflector. These assessments are typically carried out in two ways: • Use of Reflectivity Curves • DGS Software or Calculations

This paper will cover the basis behind the development of these curves and the DGS system.

ABSTRACT. This paper discusses the use of shearography as a complementary NDT technique for inspection of petroleum pipeline at parent and weld metal area. In this study, for inspection on parent metal area, the artificial corrosion in pipeline was modelled by creating circular defects of 5mm depths from 7mm thickness pipe wall. While, for inspection of weld, a different pipeline with 7mm thickness pipe wall was modelled by creating root concavity and undercut defects of different location and sizes on weld area. An internal air pressure were exerted to these two pipelines. The results showed that change of internal pressure is an effective means to reveal corrosion, root concavity and undercut activities in the pipelines. The speckle correlations can clearly be observed with ∆P≥0.24MPa for corrosion while ∆P≥0.36MPa for root concavity and undercut. For comparison the radiography technique is used to correlate the shape of the defects and finally to detects the location of defects in weld area.

ABSTRACT. Boiler tube failures continues to be the primary cause for forced outages in boilers. To get the boiler back on line and reduce (eliminate) future forced outages due to tube failure, it is extremely important to determine and correct the failure root cause. Detecting and sizing flaws before they cause failures is of critical importance in boiler maintenance. Localized and general wall thinning due to corrosion & erosion in boiler water-wall tubing is a significant inspection concern for boiler operators.

There are at least four (4) other methods used for the inspection of Boiler Water walls. These methods are Spot Check UT, A-Scan UT, EMAT, and Scanning Thermograpy. Spot Check UT only gives thickness readings and gets very minimal coverage of the total surface area of the furnace water walls; the chances of finding I.D. flaw mechanisms using Spot Check UT are minimal at best. If Boiler Water walls have been sandblasted, A-Scan UT may be used to inspected larger areas of the furnace walls; in these cases, a steady flow of water is most often used as the couplant. The EMAT technique requires that any Boiler Water wall surfaces be sandblasted.

This paper will present a discussion on the deployment of robotic wall crawler using electromagnetic technique to inspect boiler water walls from outside of the tube together with the theoretical background of the technique which explains the quantitative nature of the inspection.

Further, case studies will be presented for the technique that allows the extraction of tube wall thickness information from the inspection data.

ABSTRACT. Corrosion monitoring in the annular plate region of above ground storage tanks is a critical need of storage tank operators. This region is prone to accelerated corrosion due to additional stresses caused by weight of the tank wall and the increased possibility of water entrapment under the annular plate leading to tank ruptures. Identification of this corrosion can be very difficult during internal inspection due to corrosion location (bottom side and near shell-floor joint). Floor scanners cannot inspect at the toe of Shell to Annular Plate Inner weld. Traditional UT measurements have limited ability at the weld toe due to access restrictions. Significant amount of corrosion may actually be under the inner weld toe and this may be difficult to detect. Corrosion can be very localized (< 1% ) of a tank circumference. An onstream tool to inspect this region is needed which can handle small projection chimes, poor surface condition and find corrosion close to the weld toe inside the tank to prevent failures.

A new concept for the improved inspection of corrosion at annular plate in the near shell wall region of storage tanks using a short-range ultrasonic guided wave technique that uses a collection of Higher Order Modes Clusters, called here as HOMC* has been developed and verified at several field sites. Ultrasonic guided waves, once generated will be reflected from corrosion in the plate. Inspection can be carried out from outside the tank using the accessible portion of the plate. Weld toes, uneven surfaces or paint coatings do not come in the way of inspection using HOMC technique. A robotic scanner called TAPS (Tank Annular Plate Scanner) has been developed and tested for automating the inspection process.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents experimental and simulation studies of high frequency eddy current non-destructive testing (NDT) methods for inspection of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. It is well known that CFRP composite materials are widely used in industry as structural components, and products based on such materials are increasingly developed and introduced to market. In recent years, non-conventional eddy current method operating at high frequencies for NDT of composites begins to attract attention. It provides a non-contact, couplant-free option of inspection when compared with the other NDT methods currently used in industry. As eddy current relies on fibre fabrics in individual plies to form the current pathways, the eddy current paths in composite are unsurprisingly complex due to the structural features of composite laminates when compared with that in homogenous conducting metals for which conventional eddy current NDT is often used in industry. It will be noted that the knowledge is still limited so far about the eddy current distributions in composite laminates due to lack of effective theoretical and numerical models. This paper will focus on the development of a new numerical model that is suitable for use in simulations of high frequency eddy current inspection of fibre placements. An effective model is desirable for understanding the performance dependence of the eddy current testing method on the material properties, composite structural features, and other parameters involved. In this model, the fibre tow layout of individual plies is taken into consideration. The collection of the pickup signals by the sensor probe shows clear images of the fibre placement in different layers. The simulation results are compared with experimental results of fibre placement imaging. The model is useful for understanding the physical process for inspection of composites using high frequency eddy current methods, and for studying the influence of the controllable parameters involved.

ABSTRACT. Carbon-fibre reinforced composites (CFRP) and glass-fibre reinforced composites (GFRP) has seen widespread usage in various industries, from aerospace to utilities. With the 'The green shift' and sustainability movement gaining momentum, there is an increased pressure for sustainable / natural materials to be used. Natural materials such as flax fibre can be used as a replacement for glass fibres. With the expectation that these composites will see increased usage, there is a need to develop inspection technologies.

In this paper, single element immersion ultrasonic testing is used to inspect the flax fibre composites. The initial step involved inspection optimisation to obtain ideal input parameters. The raw results had no clear detection of the seeded delamination (using Teflon sheets). An advanced post-processing technique used for fibre waviness detection in CFRP was applied to the data. This post-processing technique included frequency analysis, phase analysis and amplitude analysis. The three types of data were separated from the raw data and visualised using a C-scan. Using this post-processing method, the seeded delamination could be detected. As a follow-up, more samples of various thicknesses and varying values of fibre waviness were fabricated to understand the limitation of inspection of flax fibres composites. This was achieved by having different thicknesses of Teflon sheets. The aim is to eventually have an inspection technique for a natural composite. This inspection technique and post-processing techniques has the potential to be applied onto the composite fabrication process, to aid in the manufacturing, optimisation, and validation process.

ABSTRACT. Although Ultraviolet-B (UV-B)-plant interactions have been extensively analyzed in the past years, many physiological aspects of the complex plant response mechanisms still need to be elucidated [1, 2]. Depending on the energy dose, this part of the electromagnetic spectrum can induce detrimental or beneficial effects in plant and fruit. In the present work, active thermography is used to analyze in real time the response of plants under different doses of artificial UV-B. In particular, we investigated the temporal variations of the leaf surface temperature (LST) to UV-B exposure by Long Pulse and Lock-in thermography [3] in Epipremnum aureum and in Arabidopsis plants overexpressing or knockout mutants of UVR8, the known UV-B photoreceptor. In both cases, UV-B irradiation triggers a cooling effect, namely a thermal response characterized by a LST lower respect to the initial value. Lock-in thermography demonstrated that the cooling effect is associated with an immediate mobilization and accumulation of water in the leaves. Also, we demonstrated that thermographic responses change according to the different capability of plants to tolerate high UV-B radiation. Our study highlights new physiological and physical aspects of the plants response to UV-B radiation and, more in general, it opens new opportunities for the use of the thermography as smart tool for real-time monitoring of plant environmental interactions.

[1] M. Schreiner, J. Martinez-Abaigar, J. Glaab, M. Jansen, UV-B Induced Secondary Plant Metabolites. Optik&Photonik, 9 (2014), pp. 34–37.

[2] V.P. Singh, S. Singh, S.M. Prasad, P. Parihar, UV-B Radiation: From Environmental Stressor to Regulator of Plant Growth, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, (2017).

[3] Maldague, X.P.V.: Introduction to NDT by active infrared thermography. Mater. Eval. 60, 1060–1073 (2002)

ABSTRACT. Active thermal imaging has been attracting a lot of interest as a promising non-destructive technique since it allows the detection of subsurface defects in composites, as well as in other materials. Thermal images captured using this inspection method enable the visualization and localization of structural defects existing within a material. However, determining whether a feature captured in thermal images corresponds to structural defect is not always straightforward, it depends on an inspector’s experience. There is the need to automate the interpretation of thermal image datasets to enhance detection, identification’s accuracy and expedite the inspection of components in several industries making used of thermal imaging methods.

Herein, it is described the development of an automated subsurface defect detection system which makes use of a hybrid approach based on two models: a neural network based deep learning model and a signal processing method making use of thermal transport characteristics in solids. This complementary approach aims to reduce the identification of false positives as well as to provide a reliable identification of structural defects based on the thermal properties of composites. The implementation of the defect detection system into a portable infrared imaging device is also discussed.

ABSTRACT. Cracks are the most common cause of failure in the manufacturing of metal parts, hence technologies for detecting them are essential for defect-free production. In this study, a local laser spot excitation combined with robotic scanning is used to identify vertical cracks in titanium. It is feasible to observe anisotropies in the lateral diffusivity by capturing temporal temperature data with an infrared camera utilizing local thermal stimulation. The crack parameter may then be quantified based on the regional transient behavior of temperature distribution. In doing so, we present an advanced technique for distinguishing between contrast created by the surface oxide layer and contrast caused by the vertical crack. In addition, we provide results from a numerical simulation that looked at the notion of local heat excitation for crack parameter quantification. Thermal conduction, radiation, and convection all play a role in the simulation. The experimental and theoretical findings were found to be quite consistent.

ABSTRACT. In industrial field, technology transformation is a natural progress and inevitable process that primarily tends to improve the elegant life of the mankind. Latest technology transformation is considered as the 4th industrial revolution and termed as “Industry 4.0”. Mapping tools (like Goggle maps), self-driving cars, intelligent virtual assistants (like Amazon’s Alexa), cryptocurrencies (like bitcoin) are the outcome of the ongoing fourth industrial revolution. The active representation of NDE sector in “industry 4.0” is considered as “NDE 4.0”. NDE refers non-destructive evaluation, which includes testing and evaluating its output results against the corresponding acceptance criteria. This fourth revolution of NDE (NDE 4.0) represents the technology transformation by digitalizing the existing NDE process through cyber networking of physical systems of asset owner, contactor and NDT service company. NDE 4.0 offers the new prospects for quality control during manufacturing and safety assurance during in-service of physical assets. This paper emphasizes the key steps that are to be handled by the NDT service company to transform the existing NDE process into the implementation of NDE 4.0. In this paper, weld examination is considered as an application study and the key steps include process plan (from “procedure uploading in owner’s ERP” to “feedback of NDE output into industrial process control”), cyber connectivity (Industrial Internet of Things, Cloud etc), process automation (automated calibration, automated job identification, automated scanning, automated evaluation through artificial intelligence software etc.), enhanced visual reporting (Augmented reality, Interactive dash board etc.), and feedback control (Digital twin).

ABSTRACT. All organizations will get benefitted with the implementation of digital technologies. This helps in automating and enforcing the desired processes across the organization. With the availability of government grants, small and medium enterprises (SME) in Singapore are having great opportunity to avail the solution with the least amount of money spent. Choosing the right solutions is one of the key tasks of the business owners. We categorize the operations of any SME into the below 1. Human Resource Management (including data management, Job Planning, Attendance, Leave and Payroll) 2. Procurement (Material Request, Request for Quotations (RFQ), Purchase Orders, Inventory etc.) 3. Sales (Enquiry registration, Quotation and its revisions, follow up, Convert to Projects) 4. Finance (Invoice / Receivables / Payables / P&L / GST etc.) 5. Operations (NDT / Inspection / Scaffolding / etc.) cuteOffice is a one stop customizable solution that helps to manage the entire organization digitally. This paper details the standard scenarios of any SME and how it can be improved with digitalization.

ABSTRACT. Worldwide, two prominent Schemes in NDT Training and Certification are prevalent - Employer based scheme (based on SNT-TC-1A) and Central Certification Schemes (based on ISO 9712). Even though ISO 9712 is getting more visibility, the employer-based schemes are still widely used in the industry.

The Written Practice is playing a pivotal role in the employer-based scheme. Even though this requirement has been around since the beginning, there are still some misconceptions regarding the implementation of the Written Practice. Many times, the owner of the Written Practice (employer) is not well aware of the requirements, and this may defeat the purpose of the Employer based Certification Scheme.

This paper is detailing the salient features of the WP and the difficulties faced in the implementation of the WP.

The pain areas covered are:

1. Education 2. Experience 3. Vision Test 4. Training and training Programs 5. Examination - General, Specific, Practical 6. Practical examination Samples 7. Certification 8. Re-certification 9. Technical Performance evaluation 10. Adding new techniques

This paper is based on our extensive experience with several ASME Certification Audits and the discussions held with various Team Leaders, Authorized Inspector Supervisors and Authorized Inspectors and our field experience. The paper will recommend good practices to be followed in the implementation of the Employer based scheme.

ABSTRACT. In November 2011, the government and business of Germany approved the INDUSTRIE 4.0 strategic initiative aimed at developing industrial information technologies and establishing itself as a world leader in the field of industry, primarily mechanical engineering, as the basis of a modern economy.

Ten years have passed, it has already been forgotten that this is a national project of one specific country. The English-language "INDUSTRY 4.0" and the number 4.0 itself have become global brands. The need to integrate methods, technologies and equipment into smart distributed processes of design, production and maintenance of products has formed a new area of knowledge NDE 4.0 about physical methods and devices for detecting inhomogeneities in materials and products, as well as determining their geometric and physical and mechanical characteristics in order to quantify their structural integrity and compliance with the specified design parameters using the main technical ideas and principles of INDUSTRY 4.0 (including the unified principles of standardization and metrological support), which allow optimal integration of non-destructive testing devices and systems into the CPS structure and "smart industries" to ensure full automation of all production and management processes.

It has been ten years of research and development. The public and behind-the-scenes statements of the publication dedicated to this anniversary are not as enthusiastic as in the first years of the project's deployment. As it seems to the author, this is largely due to the lack of a correctly formulated strategy and unity of goals involved in the process of specialists from various industries and understanding of NDE 4.0 as an interdisciplinary scientific and technical direction aimed at building networks of connected intelligent sensors that form large systems built into the infrastructure of distributed "smart" enterprises / industries, the development of related engineering disciplines as the basis for ensuring the autonomous long-term functioning of these systems based on realistic models of NDT and CM tools built into robotic systems using deep / machine learning with the subsequent implementation of the principles of artificial intelligence in NDT and CM, taking into account trends INDUSTRY 4.0, as well as solving problems related to the transition from automated to automatic NDT within the full life cycle of complex technical systems.

In the report: - analyzed the main tasks and forecasts in the field of development of methods, equipment and technologies of NDT and CM, as well as the training of specialists at time intervals of 5, 10 and 20 years, starting from 2012, their connection with the goals and objectives of the INDUSTRIE 4.0 initiative; - slippages of NDE 4.0, connected, among other things, with similar problems of INDUSTRIE 4.0, were identified and justified; - critically examined the paradox of "near-zero progress in efficiency in the field of NDE 4.0 practice, which seems close to the" Salou paradox "; - in relation to NDE 4.0, a hypothesis is stated about the need for a significant time lag (delay) between the moment of development and widespread introduction of new planetary digital technologies and the appearance of large-scale breakthrough results; - the need for a comprehensive consideration of the NDE 4.0 and INDUSTRIE 4.0 factors is shown, related to the fact that new technologies make it possible to change production methods with embedded NDT and CM technologies, mechanisms for distributing and consuming the created values, but do not directly affect economic results; - the reasons for the considered paradoxes are systematized, including the fact that the digitalization of inefficient processes and technologies only leads to inefficient digital processes, including in NDT and CM.

ABSTRACT. Acoustic Pulse Reflectometry (APR) has been applied extensively to tubular systems in research laboratories, for purposes of measuring input impedance, bore reconstruction, and fault detection. Industrial applications have been mentioned in the literature, though they have not been widely implemented. Academic APR systems are extremely bulky, often employing sophisticated set up, which limits their industrial use severely. Furthermore, leak detection methods described in the literature are based on indirect methods, by carrying out bore reconstruction and finding discrepancies between the expected and reconstructed bore.

Here, we describe an APR system which is named APRIS designed specifically for detecting faults commonly found in industrial tube systems such as heat exchangers, condensers and boilers leaks, increase in internal diameter caused by wall thinning, and constrictions by blockages or deposits or scales. The system employs extremely hardware setup, making it extremely portable, but creating a large degree of overlap between forward and backward propagating waves in the system. A series of patented algorithmic innovations enable the system to perform the wave separation mathematically, and then identify the above faults automatically, with a measurement time on the order of 10 seconds per tube.

ABSTRACT. FAAST is a UT Phased Array system especially designed to meet with the high productivity inspection needs, thanks to its outstanding capability at replacing multiple conventional Phased Array systems working in parallel. The FAAST technology has the capability to transmit multiple sound beams, multi-oriented and/or multi-focused in one single shot using standard 1D or 2D phased array probes. More features are integrated into the instrument, such the possibility to shot at different frequencies within the same shot. Furthermore, it allows to work in full parallel or by using several active apertures on the same probe. Hereafter is a list of applications where the FAAST technology brings added value within the Aircraft industry: Reference in Aircraft Industry for special alloy and titanium turbine disc inspection complying with Multi-zone testing procedures aiming at the detection of down to Ø0.4mm FBH at 2.5mm up to 140mm depth from the surface. Multi-zone testing procedure requests Multi-focused and/or Multi-oriented beams generation within a single spray throughout a 2D matrix probe, reducing thus considerably the inspection time per turbine disc. A feasibility study in Aircraft Industry for aluminium plate has been performed using the multiple focused aiming at the detection of Ø0.8mm FBH from 2mm up to 160mm depth from the surface using a single 1D linear 128 elements phased array probe with a width of 120mm. As the FAAST allows to generate all focusing delay laws in one single shot, the scanning speed can reach up to 700mm/s while the performances answer the Aircraft standards in terms of SNR. A feasibility study in Bars application has been performed using the multiple angles to detect Ø0.8mm FBH and longitudinal notch. By using a curved phased array probe, the FAAST generates the 0° and ±45° angles in one single shot allowing thus an increase of speed of 60%.

ABSTRACT. A large amount and diversity of data is required for training an effective and robust deep learning or machine learning model. However, obtaining sufficient and various real-time data is difficult for bulky equipment such as marine turbochargers in practical working conditions, since exhaustive acquisition and annotation is hard and time-consuming. In this paper, the proposed methods use Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to generate virtual numerical data from limited number of real data. Two GAN architectures, which are basic GAN and conditional GAN, are utilized to develop the methods. The resultant virtual data can be either unlabelled or labelled. It shows that GANs can generate numerical data which is similar enough and not significantly different from the real data. Furthermore, GAN-based domain adaptation approach will be developed to generate synthetic data for predictive maintenance of a turbocharger, given by some healthy data of itself and laboratory testing data of other turbochargers.

ABSTRACT. Food and beverage (F&B) fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) contribute a major portion of global food loss and waste in the food supply chain in the form of food loss and package defect-induced waste. Food products pass through several processing lines including, mixing, filling, dispensing, sealing, and packaging before dispatch. To save on the cost and footprint to build additional machinery, producers resort to using the same lines for processing food powders with similar or limited ingredients. The storage, mixing and filling conditions of processing lines affect the food powder quality. Hoppers are large stainless-steel containers to store and mix contents before filling into jars/containers for subsequent sealing/capping at high speeds. Such high-speed mixing and filling lead to poor powder homogeneity. Currently, such content-filled containers are subjected to invasive sample extraction for offline spectroscopic analysis in a laboratory on randomly picked samples, which is time-consuming, uses expensive machinery, requires user-dependent data analysis, and results in food loss and waste in the form of poor-quality powders and/or powder/package waste from batch rejection. In this work, we focus on applying a non-invasive sensing technology to prevent food loss and waste generation through early detection and screening of poorly mixed powders in filled containers. A capacitive system is proposed to detect dielectric differences between varying levels of binary blending of beverage powders to showcase its application for powder homogeneity analysis. The detection scheme showed a fast response time (50 ms) and a low detection limit of 15% for detecting powder fraction in a binary blended mixture non-invasively.

ABSTRACT. Non-destructive test (NDT) is well-known testing and acts as an important and mandatory part of the quality system for the automotive, aerospace, and oil & gas industry. There are several available non-destructive tests (NDT) methods such as ultrasonic, magnetic, eddy current, and radiographic that intend to provide a measurement for the NDT inspector to interpret the reading of the equipment. The result of interpretation will determine the quality and defect detection. The calibration process of NDT equipment is a major element to make sure the equipment is precise and accurate. The calibration process will help to detect any failure of components in the NDT equipment. However, the current normal practice in the industry does not follow the best quality management system to perform calibration activities. Therefore, this paper (review) aims to extract the resulting traceability, competency of the calibrator, and calculation of measurement uncertainty. The 3 main procedures as reference are ISO 9001:2015, ISO/IEC 17025:2017, and the conventional method. All the 3 mentioned quality management systems will be compared, and the best quality management system will be identified to support the calibration activity.

ABSTRACT. Every manufacturing and production process is only as good as its product result can be reliably checked and assessed. The heat treatment of components of various types represents a challenge to quality assurance. Due to state-of-the-art technology, nowadays, controllable properties of metal parts are very diverse. This includes, among others, surface hardness, hardness depth, hardness profile, whether by induction or by thermochemical heat treatment processes. In this article we look at the ability of eddy current to test metallographic structures and material mixtures. The operation of this test method is demonstrated using the comparative test on the ibg system. Here, the signal of the sample to be tested is compared with the signals of good parts that were previously recorded. The ibg multi-frequency technique works with 8 frequencies plus their two sets of harmonics, which means 24 frequencies in total. This configuration allows not only to differentiate between hardened or not hardened, but also offers a much wider range of possible structural differences to be precisely detected. As a result, we show that eddy current testing with ibg equipment is an effective method for providing a reliable statement that meets the highest quality standards, even in mass production.

ABSTRACT. Digital twins are an essential part of Industry 4.0 where digital models are used to mimic the physical systems and to enable seamless interactions between the digital and physical system in an interactive manner. The use of Digital Twins for NDE 4.0 would involve the reproduction of the NDT automated systems in the digital world that would incorporate the mechanical robotics along with the physics of the NDT technique to provide a simulation platform. This Digital Twin will enable the virtual inspection protocols to be evaluated, without the need for the access to the physical system and optimize the inspection prior to porting the optimized parameters to the physical system for inspection. Alternatively, the data from the physical system can be used by the digital twin to emulate the inspection and provide real-time guidance to the inspector. In this talk, the generation of digital twins for ultrasonic gantry-based inspection system for large composite structure with complex shape will be demonstrated. Additionally, a digital twin for an X-ray digital flat panel-based system for inspection of Aluminum cast components will also be discussed. The digital twins use the physics of the ultrasonic wave and X-ray interaction with the component and the simulation of the actual datasets obtained from the simulations along with the manipulation of the components.

ABSTRACT. Additive manufacturing (AM) is able to create engineering components with internal features that are unmeasurable using conventional tactile and optical methods; new methods for measuring internal inaccessible features in a non-destructive manner are required. In this work a metal additively manufactured (AM) component with an internal channel is fabricated and scanned via X-ray computed tomography (XCT) before and after undergoing internal surface polishing by means of abrasive flow machining (AFM). The internal surface roughness of the AM channel is characterised in 3D to better understand and control the AFM process. The results show that XCT is able to reveal the complex internal surface texture of metal AM components and to quantify the changes caused by the AFM process.

ABSTRACT. The global composite materials market is expected to reach 128.82 billion by 2028. This leads to a 7.52% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) during the forecast period from 2021 to 2028. Composite materials are used to serve customers with a variety of highly complex engineered parts, design patterns, and structures. History shows the glass fiber and carbon fiber composites industry have been fueled by Japan, North America, and Europe. In recent years, there has been a shift toward Asia Pacific increasing the demand for glass and carbon fibers in the aerospace and wind energy sectors. With the rapidly expanding use of non-metallic materials for piping, vessels and aircraft, laminates, polyethylene, and composite materials often pose examination challenges not typical of metallics in the multiple industries. These range from physical damage to chemical attack and either could occur in the layup or construction or as service induced damage. In this paper, employing multi-frequency advanced microwave technology, proprietary antennas, and software, we discuss the process as applied to Polyethylene piping, Fiberglass Reinforced Plastics, Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastics, Fiberglass, Fiberglass overwrap repairs on steel pipe substrate, and other non-laboratory applications. Though field deployable microwave examination is just emerging as an NDT method, it has seen rapid development for materials where variations in dielectric constants can be imaged and displayed as A-, B-, and C-scan images then related to a change in condition of the material and its ability to perform as designed. Future work remains in improving the scanning apparatus for the vast variety of materials, deploying the technology on UAVs, and cataloging the MW responses to various materials and their specific deficiencies. Discussions will be made, and case studies will be covered to inform the audience of manufacturing and service-related defects and failures related to various types of composite materials. This paper will discuss the how, when, where, and why of FRP blistering, cracking, debonding, fiber fracture, wrinkles, voids, delaminations, etc.

ABSTRACT. Imitation and fake artworks are rampant in the art market, amounting up to billions in forgeries that enter the art market. Authentication processes to ensure that art works are genuine originals generally require a lot of time and effort and sometimes requires destructive testing to be done. This is also a process that involves a lot of subjectivity due to the experience and judgement of the appraisers. A method to non-destructively appraise and authenticate artwork while reducing the time and cost spent is required. Hyperspectral imaging allows art works to be inspected non-destructively and at a much faster timing while removing any involvement of subjectivity. This work shows the capability of hyperspectral imaging in differentiating not only the pigmentation differences in an art piece which may be visually subjective to the naked eye but even the difference in the material composition of paints being used.

ABSTRACT. Food contents such as coffee powder, sugar, flour, cheese particles etc. trapped in plastic seals of packaged products can eventually result in air leak and potential contamination of contents due to entry of air or bacteria. This is an ongoing industry-wide problem for which no straightforward inspection solution has been identified. Backscattered light is used by optical coherence tomography (OCT) to provide cross-sectional images of micro-layers of tissues and other samples. OCT is akin to “optical ultrasound” in its utilising light waves instead of sound waves for image acquisition. As a relatively new NDT technique for non-biomedical applications, OCT might be suitable for assessment of seal integrity by revealing the presence of contents trapped within the laminates of the seal structure. This experimental study uses an OCT system (Lumedica OQ Labscope) using broadband light of 840 nm centre wavelength and capable of attaining depth resolution of 7 µm and lateral resolution of 15 µm. Our imaging results indicate that OCT can clearly show the presence of trapped powder and food particles in transparent and translucent plastic seals. Attempts to image trapped contents in opaque metallized plastic seals are largely unsuccessful. However, distortion of geometrical profile in the opaque seals can be observed by OCT and might serve as an indirect indicator of the defect.

ABSTRACT. The overhead catenary system (OCS) comprises of the pantograph which presses against the underside of the lowest overhead wire or the contact wire. Current collectors are electrically conductive and allow current to flow through to the train and back to the feeder station through the steel wheels on one or both running rails. With water seepage due to occurrence of monsoon rain and porosity of the cement material, the mineral rich rock structure can undergo much more rapid degradation under an electrochemical process due to the potential of the OCS. SEM images of the corroded bolts segment show high porosity surface with corroded voids. EDX study shows the presence of high oxide, chloride, and iron elements as indicative of a corroded bolt. The first backwall echo of the ultrasonic peak amplitude provides an understanding of the length of a bolt. Comparative study can provide a signature of the bolts which have been corroded with less fringe peaks due to the presence of bolts’ threads which tends to wear out with the duration of corrosion. Fatigue cracks are mimicked and modelled with cut notches of varying depths on bolts followed by immersion in corrosive peroxide solution for accelerated corrosion. A good clear distinction of the presence of such peak signal amplitudes due to cut notches with the referenced backwall echo peaks of the corroded bolts could be registered by the ultrasonic tests. The height of the signal peak amplitudes could give an indication of the depth of cut at the notch and the quantity of such peaks provide an indication of the number of cut notches. The ultrasonic test provides an effective means for non-destructive testing of such bolts which are embedded in concretized underground tunnel.

ABSTRACT. Additively manufactured (AM) of metals has attracted much attention in wide range of industries. However, rough surface is an inherent characteristic of AM process, which significantly limit industrial applications of AM components. Post-processing surface finish is therefore necessary to improve surface quality and quantitative measurement of surface is required to ensure the surface meets high level of accuracy requirement. For external surface, a number of methods can be applied to measure the roughness, such as contact stylus profilometer and non-contact optical microscope. However, it is challenging for these conventional methods to measure internal surface because of limited access. Different from conventional methods, ultrasonic wave may overcome the limited access and provide an advanced measurement to evaluate the quality of the internal surface. In this paper, we present a methodology to evaluate the roughness of internal surface by placing an ultrasonic transducer on the external surface. An ultrasonic wave can be excited by the transducer, interact with the internal surface, then go back to the external surface and be received by the transducer. The information of the internal surface can be encoded into the ultrasonic wave during the wave interaction with the surface. The useful information can thus be decoded from the received signal with appropriate inverse algorithm. This methodology can be used for off-line measurements as well as on-line monitoring.

ABSTRACT. Ultrasonic testing techniques recently occupies a prominent pride of place among the big five techniques of NDT,viz,Ultrasonic technique,radiography testing,penetrant testing,magnetic particle testing and eddy current testing. This is because of its advantages of excellent depth of penetration, excellent resolution, relatively simple instrumentation, defect detection in real time and absence of any risks of irradiation.It has therefore been extensively used in different industries since forty years.

UT, as it is fondly called, has made an immense contribution to the quality assurance programme, especially in the testing of different types of welding irrespective of shapes and sizes. Manual angle probe beam testing is employed at this stage in view of the relatively low volume and quantity of testing is involved. Final products such as sheets, rods, wires, plates, welds and tubes are invariably qualified by UT mostly using high speed automatic testing systems. Qualification of critical raw materials like stainless steel plates used in the fabrication of critical process equipment and quality assurance of commercial products such as austenitic stainless steel tubes and pipes has also involved extensive use of Ultrasonic Testing, both in manual and automated modes depending upon the testing volume and requirement.

In the last few years, availability of high frequency pulse receivers and special probes has enabled the extension of UT to new areas, like evaluation of end plug welds for fuel elements of pressurised heavy water reactors and correlation of shear strength of electric resistance spot welds of bearing pads. Work has been taken up to qualify through UT , TIG welds, presently qualified by X-ray radiography.

Automation through integration of mechanical, electrical, Ultrasonic test and control systems being taken up to replace present manual techniques like testing of zircaloy extruded and machined billets, and certain welds etc.This is expected to improve the reliability of the test and minimise operator fatigue. UT has been also employed for crack depth estimation in pins of crankshafts using a novel Rayleigh surface wave technique

This paper gives an overview of the various applications of UT in the quality assurance in welding area.

ABSTRACT. When working in hazardous industry like Oil & Gas, no one would ever want to have any process safety incident which can result in loss of many lives, damage to environment and significant financial impact to the corporation. At ExxonMobil, one of our key objectives is “nobody gets hurt” and everyone who works at our site goes back home safely. To achieve this objective and to ensure reliable and safe operation of the plant assets, NDE plays a very big role in assessing mechanical integrity of the aged/new piping/equipment and decisions are made to continue to run them safely based on outcome of NDE inspection. Keeping this perspective in mind, right quality data outcome such as results from any NDE deployment play a very significant role in today ‘s data driven world and that’s why the importance of understanding any technology application/limitation is the key to ensure that it gets understood correctly and applied rightly. As we all know that there is no one perfect solution to any problem specifically in our industry hence there is a need to continue to have collaboration amongst industry companies to technology vendors to keep driving innovation, coming out with solutions addressing industry challenges today and develop “fit for purpose” solutions to maximize their applications. This presentation covers these aspects in detail including importance of NDT data, how they are used in decision making for continued safe operation of the plant, EM collaboration with technology vendor to address specific problems and expectation from end user perspective in technology development and deployment at the site. It also covers some of key challenges in technology world linking to industry problem and future landscape of NDE with expected to have more automation and intelligence to enable people to be more effective and efficient.

ABSTRACT. Corrosion happening at the support regions, under sleeves, in interfaces of the pipes are severe and need reliable assessment. These hidden corrosion vary in nature based on the type of hidden region such as in resting supports, welded sacrificial pads or clamp supports just pipes wrapped in protective wrapping.

Ultrasonic NDT plays a major role in the inspection of these supports. Several NDE Techniques exist for such inspection but quantifying the wall loss in an accurate manner depends on the nature and extent of corrosion.

A new concept for the improved inspection of corrosion at the support region of pipelines using a short-range ultrasonic guided wave technique that uses a collection of Higher Order Modes Clusters, called here as HOMC* has been developed and verified at several field sites. Ultrasonic guided waves  (circumferential or axial modes), once generated will be reflected or transmitted from corrosion and other features on the pipe. Inspection can be carried out from the accessible portion of the pipe . This could be done as an in-service inspection without emptying the pipe. HOMC guided waves are unaffected by the point of incidence of the probe. Accurate Wall loss estimation is possible together with cross sectional profile of maximum thickness loss. Using this information an accurate remaining wall thickness assessment is achieved. The technique has been deployed from pipes 2inches and above and upto 20mm wall thickness.

ABSTRACT. Periodic structure is wildly used in metamaterial design in different fields. It has great potential in NDE and SHM fields due to different features, like focusing, bandgap, direction manipulation, and mode selection. First fundamental torsional mode T(0,1) can be focused by adding periodic structure based on phononic crystals and gradient index refraction. In the present study influence of the periodic structure with different element shape on torsional wave is discussed. Eigenfrequency analysis was performed for different configurations of the periodic structure by using the finite element method and floquet boundary condition. Dispersion curves for the torsional wave were obtained as an analysis result. Propagating wave creates a local resonance which leads to the bandgaps between modes and the first torsional mode T(0,1) becomes dispersive. The influence of the configuration on the dispersion curves is shown. Additionally mentioned that negative group velocity can be achieved.

ABSTRACT. Eliminating the associated risks of buried fuel tank inspection, industry leader Shell has identified Eddyfi Technologies inspection robots as a safer alternative to current practices. It is actively pursuing this remote non-destructive testing (NDT) be legally recognized as an alternative to Bulgaria’s official inspection which necessitates confined space entry, or CSE. In doing so, fuel retailers will be able to choose whether to continue sending people inside the tank or a robot instead.

Confined space entry inspections of buried fuel tanks present many risks to human operators including gassing which has very serious consequences. As part of Shell’s industry lifesaving rules developed by the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers, CSE is only allowed in unique circumstances after special permission has been obtained. With Eddyfi Technologies inspection robots, human entry into tanks is no longer required and the risk is removed.

The company’s goal is not just to copy the work of the person inside the tank, but to make inspection at the same or even better level, while increasing safety. The data obtained by the inspection crawler robot is at least as good, if not better, than if it was collected by a human. It is Eddyfi Technologies’ desire to make this inspection as safe as possible. And this is the best way to achieve this goal - through robotic remote inspection as this presentation will clearly demonstrate.