It’s been nine years since a heat exchanger burst at an oil refinery in Anacortes, WA, fatally injuring seven workers and bringing renewed attention to the risks of high-temperature hydrogen attack (HTHA).

Nondestructive testing (NDT) is the most important industry you’ve never heard of. That’s how I typically start a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) demonstration.

In the previous article, we touched upon NDT 4.0 and provided a glimpse into what it is and how it is transforming industries around the globe. Now we will dive into a segment of NDT 4.0, automation, and look at some examples that highlight how it is changing companies for the better.

Because aircraft structures are subjected to impacts and lightning strikes, reliable and efficient NDT methods are needed to quickly assess possible damage.

Headquartered near Cleveland, OH, Orbit is a Nadcap and ISO 17025 accredited laboratory that also operates out of four other satellite inspection facilities across Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

On April 20, three days after a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 experienced an engine failure due to a fractured fan blade, resulting in the death of a passenger, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency airworthiness directive that requires operators of CFM56-7B engines with more than 30,000 flight cycles to perform a one-time ultrasonic inspection of all 24 fan blades to detect cracking.

MTC is a Nadcap accredited special processor, providing a complete range of NDT testing services and related chemical processing, primarily servicing the aerospace industry, with a unique niche service focused on titanium critical rotating parts.

Short range guided wave testing (SRGWT) is an application of guided ultrasonic sound waves using special types of probes. When the guided waves hit the discontinuities, the mode converted sound is reflected back and received by the transducer.

Nowhere is the need for material integrity more obvious than in medical devices that are implanted into human beings. A failed device inside an aircraft or power plant may, under some circumstances, cause a problem.

Ductile iron is an iron-carbon casting material whose matrix includes carbon in the form of nodular graphite particles. Rounded graphite nodules in the ductile iron matrix offer greater resistance to stress concentration when compared to graphite flakes (as in gray cast iron) and, therefore, inhibit the creation of cracks.