Ultrasonic fatigue testing is importance for materials intended for high endurance, high reliability applications.

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies present an array of benefits including lightweight structures (lattices, triply periodic minimal surfaces, and other organic shapes), consolidation of parts, limiting necessity for tooling, and lead time reduction.

Phased array ultrasonic testing (PAUT) has been steadily supplanting conventional ultrasonic testing since its introduction in the early 2000s.

Flaws can come in many different shapes, orientations, and sizes. They can be minor material differences, surface imperfections, or anything that is not supposed to be on or in a component.

The Level III (SNT-TC-1A) / Level 3 (NAS 410) population of inspectors is graying and looking forward to retirement. A problem for the foreseeable future is a current shortage of qualified Level IIIs in all NDT methods.

For an optimal digital workflow in radiographic testing (RT), the X-ray inspection software D-Tect X can be integrated with the NDT management software DRIVE NDT.

The continuous ground-breaking advances in the aerospace industry put more and more pressure on nondestructive testing (NDT) equipment manufacturers to be proactively solving new inspection challenges. As such, the recent advances in eddy current array (ECA) have considerably expanded the range of components and assets that can be inspected for surface and near-surface flaws.

Aerospace has a large, diverse, global supply chain. It is also struggling to keep up with demand while maintaining the essential quality and conformity of the products and services. 

While PAUT is becoming a popular approach for nondestructive inspections, it is important that users understand this technology, its limitations and how it should be applied.

“I was stunned to learn that the Titan submersible had supposedly not undergone any NDT testing.”