Speaker Interviews: Structural Integrity Design and Validation Technologies Conference

Please briefly explain your role and involvement in structural integrity assessment and/or NDT.

I am the Inspection Manager for a fully accredited type B in-service Inspection Body. My team and I use NDT techniques, supplied by a 3rd party, on a very regular basis to support the assurances of assets we inspected under PSSR.

What is the number one challenge for those using or benefitting from these technologies in today’s current market?

Probability of Detection (POD) and Confidence in Measurements for Qualitative NDT methods

What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your company or in the industry in general? 

We have been involved in trials of the New Gul QSR1 (Qualitative Short Range) scanning tool, utilising guided wave technology to transmit ultrasonics around the circumference of a pipe wall to measure pipe thickness. This technology has potential to measure pipe thicknesses at pipe supports and other hidden areas.

Where do you see the future of NDT applications and approaches to structural integrity assessment going over the next 5 to 10 years?

For me it the focus need to be on providing confidence and increasing POD in the existing NDT technologies. The key area of this is probably removing or minimising the influence of human factors.

What are you most looking forward to by attending and presenting at Structural Integrity Design and Validation Technologies 2018?

Phased array ultrasonic testing versus radiography for dense metal welds & ultrasonic NDE in lieu of radiography: challenges and opportunities

Please briefly explain your role and involvement in structural integrity assessment and/or NDT.

I have been involved for approximately 30 years on developing and applying fracture mechanics methodologies to plant components, mainly but not exclusively within the nuclear industry. The methodologies are mainly R6 and BS7910.

What is the number one challenge for those using or benefitting from these technologies in today’s current market?

To have such methodologies available for use that are not excessively conservative and hence enable a reasonable probability of continued operation (for a component containing a defect) or plant life extension to be justified.

What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your company or in the industry in general? 

The better understanding and methodology development associated with crack-tip constraint. This allows benefit to be taken from the fact that cracked structures and components generally exhibit higher fracture toughness values than those evaluated from laboratory specimens and traditionally used in structural integrity assessment.

Where do you see the future of NDT applications and approaches to structural integrity assessment going over the next 5 to 10 years?

There clearly needs to be a better technical appreciation and understanding between the structural integrity assessment and NDT communities so that the respective evaluations can be optimised as far as is possible.

What are you most looking forward to by attending and presenting at Structural Integrity Design and Validation Technologies 2018?

Learning more about NDT issues and developments from the experts in the field who will be presenting.

Please briefly explain your role and involvement in structural integrity assessment and/or NDT.

I have been involved in performing human reliability analysis of manual and semi-automated NDT activities to identify potential errors that could occur and identify means of mitigating them.

What is the number one challenge for those using or benefitting from these technologies in today’s current market?

Those involved in scanning are incredibly well-trained and skilled at what they do. However, any specialist regardless of their level of training and competence, can make errors when placed under difficult working conditions. The challenge is identifying potential errors before they happen, and putting in place defences against these errors to reduce their likelihood or to increase the opportunities to detect them.

Where do you see the future of NDT applications and approaches to structural integrity assessment going over the next 5 to 10 years?

There may be possibilities to support the interpretation of NDT scans through the technology used, which could reduce the likelihood of errors that may have long-lasting consequences.

What are you most looking forward to by attending and presenting at Structural Integrity Design and Validation Technologies 2018?

I’m looking forward to hearing about how the identification of human errors fits in with other disciplines in making the technology more robust and error tolerant.

Please briefly explain your role and involvement in structural integrity assessment and/or NDT.

I manage the area of ‘foundations’ for an industry programme that funds innovation targeted at reducing the cost of offshore wind. Offshore wind involves the deployment of many steel structures at sea over a prolonged period of time, under unique loading patterns. This leads to the need to understand the condition of the structures which is done using NDT. Our programme has recently undertaken an initiative to encourage innovation in this field.

What is the number one challenge for those using or benefitting from these technologies in today’s current market?

Cost-effective and reliable NDT of many structures in active marine environments.

What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your company or in the industry in general? 

In the near-term, the ability to transfer technology from oil and gas applications is exciting. In the longer term the automation of processes could significantly reduce costs and improve HSE risk.

Where do you see the future of NDT applications and approaches to structural integrity assessment going over the next 5 to 10 years?

The installed capacity of offshore wind will triple globally in the next 10 years leading to many more structures being exposed to corrosion and the requirement for NDT will increase accordingly.

What are you most looking forward to by attending and presenting at Structural Integrity Design and Validation Technologies 2018?

Disseminating knowledge on the opportunities in offshore wind and encouraging technology transfer into a nascent but developing industry with potentially global scale.

Please briefly explain your role and involvement in structural integrity assessment and/or NDT.

I am Doosan Babcock’s Technical Authority for NDT, responsible for NDT governance across the company. I also manage a team of NDT technicians and engineers providing routine and specialist NDT technology. We work closely with colleagues in metallurgy and structural integrity disciplines and it is our responsibility to ensure correct and best practice NDT is applied to provide accurate and meaningful results to enable informed structural integrity calculations and decisions.

What is the number one challenge for those using or benefitting from these technologies in today’s current market?

It is doubtful that many of the end users/plant operators fully understand the level of quality and reliability of NDT that they purchase. There is too much importance placed on code compliance and not enough focus on ensuring NDT regimes are fit for purpose.

What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your company or in the industry in general? 

The replacement of radiography with UT is a very progressive initiative, with UT being more conducive to structural integrity engineering. The ability of UT to inspect ever thinner materials has been a game changer for our company. Full matrix capture (FMC) is also an exciting technology development that will significantly increase the accuracy and usefulness of PAUT over the next few years.

Where do you see the future of NDT applications and approaches to structural integrity assessment going over the next 5 to 10 years?

FMC will be a significant development towards improving PAUT measurements. Eddy current arrays are also now emerging and could revolutionise and improve how surface inspection is performed. Monitoring technologies are gaining prevalence as a partial replacement for in-service NDT, or at least a way of reducing ISI.

What are you most looking forward to by attending and presenting at Structural Integrity Design and Validation Technologies 2018?

It’s a platform to get across a message that I feel strongly about. Also a good forum for learning and sharing.

Please briefly explain your role and involvement in structural integrity assessment and/or NDT.

I am Professor of Ultrasonics at the University of Bristol. There I lead a group of 30 researchers, all working on various aspects of ultrasonics, particularly non-destructive testing applications. Our mission is to research the next generation of non-destructive testing technology. And, as non-destructive testing is a measurement science, much of our work is in performing very careful measurements and developing mathematical models of new inspections. This understanding then enables us to properly quantify things like the probability of detection or the sizing accuracy, which are critical for structural integrity assessments.

What is the number one challenge for those using or benefitting from these technologies in today’s current market?

The big problem I’m working on, and the topic of my talk, is defect characterisation. The challenge is to turn ultrasonic data into reliable information on the nature and size of the defect. Here I’m trying to understand the fundamental limits of the information contained in these signals and how it can be accessed. The information we obtain is a probability distribution of possible defects. The next stage, and we are still actively working on it, is to understand the implications for structural integrity.

What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your company or in the industry in general? 

I think the next decade will see dramatic developments in permanently installed monitoring systems. Rapid progress is currently being made in the miniaturisation of sophisticated sensors, electronics and communications systems. In the future, the component will tell the operator when it needs replacing. But to do this the component must understand both NDT and structural integrity. These will be truly smart structures.

Where do you see the future of NDT applications and approaches to structural integrity assessment going over the next 5 to 10 years?

Our ability to simulate both NDT inspections and component life is improving rapidly. Over the next few years there is a big opportunity to gain a much deeper understanding of the influence of real defects on real structures. This understanding can help us make less conservative design decisions and/or increase inspection intervals. So, it’s an exciting time to be working in these fields.

What are you most looking forward to by attending and presenting at Structural Integrity Design and Validation Technologies 2018?

The interface between NDT and structural integrity is a critical one. I think that our understanding of both has progressed significantly in recent years. So I’m keen to hear views from both communities about how we can better work together. I’m also hoping it will generate the ideas to kick-start some new research projects.

Please briefly explain your role and involvement in structural integrity assessment and/or NDT.

I facilitate the adoption and development of new NDE processes to improve workplace safety and to minimise the cost and schedule impact of NDE to submarines fabrication.

What is the number one challenge for those using or benefitting from these technologies in today’s current market?

Engineering standards are slow to adapt to the availability and capability new technologies. Consequently these new technologies are often required to conform to standards that are not written with them in mind as such the full potential of these technologies is not realised.

What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your company or in the industry in general? 

Remotely installed permanent monitoring systems. The ability to measure structural properties of a component in-situ and collect and analyse orders of magnitude more data. This combined with the development of high-temperature or non-contact sensor systems is a big step towards robust predictive maintenance processes for high value engineering plant.

Where do you see the future of NDT applications and approaches to structural integrity assessment going over the next 5 to 10 years?

From an NDT perspective more permanent monitoring inspection solutions will be applied. I think there will be a strong push to bring the NDE and structural integrity communities’ closer together to better understand the current capabilities and limitations of processes used in each field. A hopeful result would be a move towards updated codes where more flaw acceptance criteria are based on fracture mechanics principles and knowledge of Probability of Detection (PoD) curves.

What are you most looking forward to by attending and presenting at Structural Integrity Design and Validation Technologies 2018?

The conference is a great chance to meet with peers in other industries and learn about their challenges, opportunities and capabilities.