Testing of welds, new international standards for innovative non-destructive examination

Abstract

New non-destructive examination methods have been available for many years. These include time of flight diffraction and phased array methods. These are routinely used for inspection of welds. Work is ongoing at ISO and CEN for standardization of these methods. First the time of flight diffraction was drafted and now ISO and CEN are working on a standard for phased arrays. These drafts are used for welding inspections. The acceptance criteria is in draft form for time of flight diffraction which will be followed by that for phased array. Standards are already available for base material phased array inspection such as the ASTM document “Standard Guide for Evaluating Performance Characteristics of Phased Array Ultrasonic Examination Instruments and Systems”. Several ASME code-cases have been issued in recent years on weld inspection. Qualification for the ASME code is also planned for this novel technique.