Inspecting Plastics and Electronics with Conventional X-ray
Industrial radiography equipment most often used for castings and welds helps provide an important level of confidence with inspection of non-metallic components.
Industrial radiography is a nondestructive testing method used to aid in looking below the surface of any given material for irregularities. When radiography was discovered and first implemented, it was mainly utilized for medical type purposes. As time passed, its results were discovered to be a valuable inspection tool for numerous manufactured items in the industrial field. Welds and metallic castings are inspected frequently these days using industrial radiography which helps to reveal defects in the material hidden below the surface. This inspection delivers extreme benefit to manufacturers as it provides quality assurance of the product and does so without sacrificing material or destroying samples. In this day and age, taking advantage of further test method development along with the increased use of polymeric materials, X-ray inspection has grown as a reliable examination method for numerous types of plastic, silicone, microchips and rubber.
This method of testing can be accomplished while conforming to various industry specifications for the inspection. References may be made to ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), or MIL (United States Military Standard) specifications, procedures and specific criteria for the evaluation. Technicians performing the inspection and evaluating samples are normally certified as per an organization like ASNT (American Society for Nondestructive Testing). If an independent test laboratory is contracted to perform the evaluation they have the ability to issue a certified test report after the inspection to outline any results found during the test. When purchasing material it may be important to request documentation that the product was tested and did conform to the relevant specification. With all methods of science, a good experiment is repeatable. Each of these specifications outline limits and create standards to ensure the repeatability of the inspections being performed.