TWI Industrial Member Report Summary 805/2004
B W Kenzie
Background
This work was carried out within the European Community 'TOFDPROOF' project funded by the 'Competitive and Sustainable Growth' programme with additional financial support to TWI from the Core Research Programme.
The primary aim of TOFDPROOF is to develop and promote the effective industrial application of the Time of Flight Diffraction (TOFD) technique, a non-destructive testing (NDT) technique using the diffraction of ultrasonic waves to detect and size flaws in materials, especially welds. Currently, a lack of appropriate European standards with related flaw acceptance criteria and also agreed operator training and certification requirements are hindering the application of TOFD as a routine NDT technique for weld inspection. More specifically, the project aims to propose details of the TOFD procedures and flaw acceptance criteria to European standards (CEN) for application to the manufacture of pressure vessels.
Objectives
- To carry out a literature survey to review existing projects and studies that are relevant to the development of flaw acceptance criteria for the TOFD technique.
- To provide recommendations for the direction of further work within TOFDPROOF to develop specific acceptance criteria for TOFD which can be used as a basis for a proposal to European standards.