Introduction to Selected Papers Based on Invited Talks Presented on the 18th World Conference on Non-destructive Testing

Abstract

The 18th World Conference on Non-destructive Testing (WCNDT) was hosted by South Africa in the International Conference Centre at the coastal city of Durban during 16–20 April of 2012. It was the first time in the history of WCNDT that it came to Africa and from my perspective it ranks amongst the most impressive past conferences in terms of venue, organisation, technical content, hospitality and entertainment. WCNDT takes place every four years and showcases innovation and state-of-the-art in NDT. This year’s theme “NDT IN SERVICE OF SOCIETY” (in the words of Mike Farley, the Chairman of the International Committee for Non-destructive Testing) reminded us of why our discipline is so important and why we need to share our knowledge, technology and experience to the benefit of all. One of the highlights of the Conference was the speech by Professor Harold Groto, Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry in 1996, with a message on research as a stimulus to development of technologies and applications. The 5 keynote speakers and 25 invited overview speakers together with more then 500 talks in 8 parallel sessions mostly devoted their time to addressing the current needs of non-destructive testing methods to obtain information not just on the presence of a flaw but in addition on its location, type, orientation and size. The industrial exhibition that always accompanies the Conference displayed the traditional Technological Arsenal of the discipline with very few innovations. Yet again it was apparent that innovation in NDT is slow; on average, it takes 35+ years to mature a new technology from inception to a