SAMPE Orange County Meeting

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Nondestructive Testing of Critical Structures

Eric Grandia, Quality Material Inspection

TOPIC : Nondestructive Inspection (NDI) is the examination of an object or material with technology that does not affect its future usefulness. NDI can be used without causing damage to a product or material. Because it allows inspection without interfering with a product's final use, NDI provides an excellent balance between quality control and cost-effectiveness. The term "NDI" includes many methods that can:

1. detect internal or external imperfections

2. determine structure, composition, or material properties

3. measure geometric characteristics

Commonly used non-destructive inspection methods include liquid penetrant, magnetic particle, eddy current and radiographic inspection, and ultrasonic inspection. Developments in digital image enhancement have broadly expanded the application and utility of NDI methods in the industry.

In the case of ultrasonic inspection, some form of acoustic couplant is required in order to efficiently conduct the ultrasonic nergy into the test piece. Gels, alcohol and water are commonly employed for this purpose, but couplants such as these can cause permanent damage or contamination to many engineered materials. Eric will discuss the Airscan® method for overcoming these difficulties. Airscan differs from conventional ultrasonic testing by virtue of using air as the coupling media.

SPEAKER: For the last twenty years Eric has been involved in nondestructive evaluation applications directed toward the aerospace, military, chemical, utilities, and commercial industries. He is experienced in code applications and procedures in metals and advanced composite materials. He has extensive experience covering ultrasonic, eddy current, radiographic, liquid penetrant, hydrostatic, magnetic and liquid particle testing.

Eric provided ultrasonic inspection services at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant for the Corrosion/Erosion Project. Inspection methods included ultrasonic thickness gaging, grid mapping and scanning for indications of thickness wall loss. He attended Irvine Valley College, Cerritos College, Orange Coast College, Cal State Fullerton, and Hellier Technical Training & Consulting. He is a member of SAMPE, American Society for Nondestructive Testing, American Welding Society and American Society of Metals. He has conducted plant tours and presented programs at a number of companies and technical societies.

Location: The Jagerhaus in Anaheim, 2525 East Ball Road, just west of the 57 Freeway, on the North side of Ball. Turn right at the first driveway. Phone 714-520-9500.

Time: 5:30 pm Social • 6:30 pm Dinner • 7:30 pm Speaker — Member or guest dinner $20.

Student (with student ID) dinner $10. No cost for Program only.

Reservations: : E-mail Darrell Reed, reed@ocmtestlabs.com or call 714-630-3003, x 211 by Tuesday noon, March 14.