FIFTH CANADIAN CONFERENCE ON NONDESTRUCTIVE ... - IAEA

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CERTIFICATION OF NONDESTRUCTIVE TESTING PERSONNEL IN CANADA
AN UPDATE
I'. Care n
CAWUET, Ottawa, Ontario
ABSTRACT
This paper surveys both the national and international scenes regarding the certification
of nondestructive testing (NDT) personnel. In Canada, the increasing
demand for NDT personnel and the implementation of the M-Standards have led to the
need for automating the administration of the program. Concurrently, the increased
interest towards harmomizing national certification schemes has steered activities
in both the ISO and the ICNDT forums.
A) THE NATIONAL SCENE
As is well-known, certification of nondestructive testing (ndt) personnel in
Canada is a fully bilingual operation which is carried out through a central agency
which is the federal Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. The certification
standards are issued by the Canadian Government Standards Board (CGSB)
and they contain all the requirements and procedure details underlying the certification
process. Some 35 to 40 persons representing a broad range of interests
are members of the national CGSB Committee for the Certification of NDT Personnel
which meets every six months to review overall activities and to resolve any major
issue arising from the certification programme. A Steering Committee supports the
main committee.
Certification initially started with Industrial Radiography in 1960, followed by
ultrasonics in 1970, magnetic particle and liquid penetrant in 1971. Certification
in eddy-currents did not start until 1982. The graph of Fig 1 illustrates
the growth of the certification programme since 1970 by showing the number of
certificates issued annually for the first four methods. Obviously, level I
radiographers had the strongest growth during the past thirteen ( L3) years but
also dropped considerably in 1983.
The total number of certificates issued as of January 1, 1984, in each method,
since their respective implementation date, is as follows:
LEVELS RT (I960) UT (1970) MT (1971) FT (1971) ET (1982)
I & II 3708 1878 1385 1490 175
for a grand total of about 8636 excluding Level III. Well over 60% of the certified
personnel holds certification in at least two (2) methods or more.