Phased Array Leseprobe

Foreword
IIW Commission V – NDT and Quality Assurance – has had, from its beginning, strong activities
in compiling reviews, handbooks and guidelines on the application of newly developed NDTtechniques
and on the interpretation of recently developed standards. Whereas Sub-Commission
VA (Radiography-based weld inspection) has primarily concentrated on standardization, Sub-
Commission VC (Ultrasound-based weld inspection) has been working on guidelines, handbooks
and recommendations. Sub-commission VE (Electric, magnetic and thermal techniques for weld
inspection) has been working on standardization as well as on handbooks.
When Hermann Wüstenberg, Germany, as chairman of Sub-Commission VC retired in 2002 two
handbook activities were in preparation. The first one was the compilation of a handbook for
automated ultrasonic inspection and the second was a handbook for ultrasonic inspection of
austenitic and dissimilar welds.
However, the inspection of welds using ultrasonic phased arrays has become popular in industrial
sectors like nuclear, petrochemical and the aerospace industries, and therefore this special
ultrasonic examination technique has been qualified for specific applications in these industrial
sectors, even if no standard existed. The topic ‘phased arrays’ has been always a part of the stateof-the-art
discussions in Sub-commission VC.
At the IIW Annual Assembly 2003 in Bucharest, Romania, Eric Sjerve, Canada, was elected as the
new chairman of Sub-Commission VC and he took over the responsibility of finishing the ongoing
handbook actions. In addition he planned a new working party for an IIW handbook on
‘inspection using ultrasonic phased arrays’. In 2004 at the Annual Assembly in Osaka, Japan,
Commission V approved the plan to work on this handbook; in the same year at the World
Conference on NDT (WCNDT) at Montréal, Canada, the phased array working party was
established, chaired by Michael Moles, also from Canada.
A first draft of the handbook was presented for in-depth discussion in Commission V at the 2006
IIW Annual Assembly in Québec. Collaborators in that work came from the USA, Canada, France,
UK and Germany. In 2007 draft editing was performed and in 2008 at the Annual Assembly in
Graz, Austria, the completed draft version was presented, approved by Commission V and
transmitted to an internal reviewing board before a final drafting.
It was in Graz too that according to the IIW constitution and three periods of chairmanship, Gerd
Dobmann retired as chairman of Commission V and Philippe Benoist, France, was elected. Under
his new chairmanship, the reviewing was finished and the handbook compilation in 2009/2010
was finally scientifically edited by Professor Bruce Drinkwater and others, as an independent
reviewers. In 2010 the document was submitted to the IIW secretariat, which in August 2010
issued a call for tender to all welding societies in the world for printing the booklet. The German
Welding Society (DVS) obtained the copyright for publishing in March 2012.
Gerd Dobmann, past (1999-2008) chairman, and
Philippe Benoist, current chairman Commission V