NDE in Industry

Why do NDE? Integrity Management Safety – input into safety cases Life prediction – input to corrosion and fracture mechanics calculations. Economics – reduce unplanned downtime, - allow planned maintenance Damage Tolerant Design Process control and quality assurance

Industrial plant

New plant Inspection of new plant – characterisation / fingerprint New plant and new designs Wind turbines Next generation of fossil plant New reactors (AP1000, pebble bed) Aerospace – Composite materials in airframes and engines Oil and gas inherently safe design, normally unmanned installations NUI

Materials Steel Stainless – austenitic, ferritic, duplex etc. Zirconium Titanium, aluminium, Ni base super alloys, Single crystal castings Metal matrix composites Concrete / cements FRP and Polymers CRA clad Plastic lined

Failure mechanisms /issues Fatigue crack Preferential corrosion at weld Intergranular corrosion 1mm long cracks in turbine blade

Failure mechanisms Rolling defect X-ray CT image of composite showing waviness defect Stress corrosion cracking

Difficult / hazardous environments Physical remoteness High temperature Chemical hazard Radiation Deep sea Arctic environment Buried Under insulation/fire-proofing Inside engines

Remote inspection

Structural health monitoring Measurement on load (reactor Pressure Vessels turbines etc) Aircraft and engines in flight Wind turbine spars Welds in boats Rails Floating Production Storage Offloading hulls/offshore jackets Pipelines

Industry Needs in NDE Large area inspection Speed of inspection Early warning of changes Better characterisation of defects for use in life prediction Understand NDE capability and reliability Human factors Validation –Better production of real defects –Computer models

Summary RCNDE represents a wide range of industries All need NDE Some common themes between industries but also specialised requirements –Power –Aerospace and Defence –Nuclear –Oil and gas –Manufacturing