- Email: [email protected]
AEA technology. 152
W C N D T Pre vie w AEA Technology. 152 Under the theme 'Advancing N DT Technology', Harwell and N R L Risley will be showing six different NDT applications and services. The National NDT Centre at Harw.ell will be explaining how it can help solve inspection problems in any sphere of industry worldwide. Specializing in contract R & D, it offers consultancy and information as well as novel inspection systems, such as the Concrete Thickness Gauge, the JScan Eddy Current Inspection System and the Rotary Laser Beam Scanner. The Rotary Laser Beam Scanner is a new product enabling circular shaped components of up to 20 cm diameter to be scanned for surface defects on a fast moving production line. Incorporating a low power laser, it has the advantage of offering a noncontact and non-intrusive method of rapid on-line monitoring. The J-Scan family of eddy current instruments can be custom built to solve particular inspection problems. Its integral computer tailors the collection and analysis of data to give a simplified display. The 'Concordant' thickness gauge will give readings of concrete thickness of up to 50 cm thickness to ___10%, at the touch of a button. It has been designed to provide rapid information on the thicknesses of concrete hard-standings and large load-bearing surfaces, including aircraft runways. The Inspection Validation Centre at NRL - Risley offers services in all aspects of high-reliability inspection, especially inspection validation. Using appropriate, deliberately-flawed test pieces, IVC will independently certify that procedures, equipment and personnel are fit for their intended purpose. The world's first Ultrasonic simulator is now available at Risley to help train and test operators validate inspection procedures. Cracks and flaws are
116
easily selected from a library and presented to operators, whose expertise is then monitored and analysed to aid in their training and to provide validation. The SHERPA technique, developed at N R L - Risley, analyses inspection procedures for potential sources of human error enabling them to be eliminated or controlled. This method of systematic analysis improves reliability and reduces the cost of expensive mistakes.
National Non-destructive Testing Centre, Harwell Laboratory, Oxfordshire OX11 ORA, UK Andrex Radiation Products. 162 On exhibition will be the new Andrex "SMART" X-ray unit, which is a light weight, portable 300 kV constant potential unit. The SMART is predicted by the company to revolutionize the Xray market. It supplies the operator with 300 kV constant potential X-rays, and the complete unit weighs no more than 48 kg. The tubehead, including hand rings and lead cover, weighs only 27.5 kg. The control unit weighs 11 kg, and the special light-weight cables weigh only 9.5 kg - about half the weight of a cable set for conventional portables.
PO Box 1869, Halfdansgade 8, DK-2300, Copenhagen S, Denmark Cogent Inspection. 159 Cogent Inspection will display a number of products based on their range of PC compatible expansion cards for ultrasonic inspection, material characterization, data acquisition and imaging, The range includes pulser receivers covering a bandwidth from 1-75 MHz, a gated peak detector, analogue-todigital converters, time interval measurement and analogue/digital input/output cards for system control, with interface to stepper motors or encoders. The company have designed and supplied systems using these cards for applications as diverse as automated industrial inspection, high frequency C-scan imaging and high resolution medical B-scanning. The design philosophy alows all ultrasonic parameters to be under full software control so that gain settings and gate positions, for example, can be changed in a preprogrammed manner during a scan. This has permitted fully automated testing of components where changing defect criteria apply in different areas.
It also contains a built-in cooling fan allowing the inspection of materials with a thickness of up to 60 mm of steel or equivalent with 100% duty cycle. Owing to the high output of the unit, exposure time is reduced to 50% compared to conventional portable X-ray sets. The control unit allows the operator to perform automatic operation with automatic running-in, and the control unit memory can contain up to 90 sets of exposure data.
The company's high frequency ultrasonic capability has been expanded by the introduction of a 100 Msps analogue-to-digital converter. This can transfer digitized RF waveforms to computer memory at very rapid rates. In conjunction with a fast buffer memory and high resolution graphics, B-scan systems have been produced providing 51 2 x 512 pixels, 128 colour displays at two images per second, with full capture of RF waveforms. This advanced design capability can be applied also to specific data acquisition tasks according to customer requirements.
Andrex Radiation Products AS,
Cogent Inspection, Sunrise
The unit can be operated from a generator or most standard car batteries, thereby providing even greater flexibility for operation.
NDT International April 1989
116
easily selected from a library and presented to operators, whose expertise is then monitored and analysed to aid in their training and to provide validation. The SHERPA technique, developed at N R L - Risley, analyses inspection procedures for potential sources of human error enabling them to be eliminated or controlled. This method of systematic analysis improves reliability and reduces the cost of expensive mistakes.
National Non-destructive Testing Centre, Harwell Laboratory, Oxfordshire OX11 ORA, UK Andrex Radiation Products. 162 On exhibition will be the new Andrex "SMART" X-ray unit, which is a light weight, portable 300 kV constant potential unit. The SMART is predicted by the company to revolutionize the Xray market. It supplies the operator with 300 kV constant potential X-rays, and the complete unit weighs no more than 48 kg. The tubehead, including hand rings and lead cover, weighs only 27.5 kg. The control unit weighs 11 kg, and the special light-weight cables weigh only 9.5 kg - about half the weight of a cable set for conventional portables.
PO Box 1869, Halfdansgade 8, DK-2300, Copenhagen S, Denmark Cogent Inspection. 159 Cogent Inspection will display a number of products based on their range of PC compatible expansion cards for ultrasonic inspection, material characterization, data acquisition and imaging, The range includes pulser receivers covering a bandwidth from 1-75 MHz, a gated peak detector, analogue-todigital converters, time interval measurement and analogue/digital input/output cards for system control, with interface to stepper motors or encoders. The company have designed and supplied systems using these cards for applications as diverse as automated industrial inspection, high frequency C-scan imaging and high resolution medical B-scanning. The design philosophy alows all ultrasonic parameters to be under full software control so that gain settings and gate positions, for example, can be changed in a preprogrammed manner during a scan. This has permitted fully automated testing of components where changing defect criteria apply in different areas.
It also contains a built-in cooling fan allowing the inspection of materials with a thickness of up to 60 mm of steel or equivalent with 100% duty cycle. Owing to the high output of the unit, exposure time is reduced to 50% compared to conventional portable X-ray sets. The control unit allows the operator to perform automatic operation with automatic running-in, and the control unit memory can contain up to 90 sets of exposure data.
The company's high frequency ultrasonic capability has been expanded by the introduction of a 100 Msps analogue-to-digital converter. This can transfer digitized RF waveforms to computer memory at very rapid rates. In conjunction with a fast buffer memory and high resolution graphics, B-scan systems have been produced providing 51 2 x 512 pixels, 128 colour displays at two images per second, with full capture of RF waveforms. This advanced design capability can be applied also to specific data acquisition tasks according to customer requirements.
Andrex Radiation Products AS,
Cogent Inspection, Sunrise
The unit can be operated from a generator or most standard car batteries, thereby providing even greater flexibility for operation.
NDT International April 1989