NDTbasics

Education,
Training, and
the Facts of Life In this Back to Basics article, John C. Duke, Jr. explains several basic principles
underlying NDT, which, at the end of the day, would be relevant and perhaps
most important to all practitioners and theorists alike.
by John C. Duke, Jr.
—John Chen, Back to Basics Technical Editor

From Materials Evaluation, Vol. 76, No. 4, pp: 455-458.
Copyright © 2018 The American Society for
Nondestructive Testing, Inc.
A
s a person with more than 20 years of formal education, you would
think I should know everything. Actually, I find myself learning new
things every day and better understanding things I was taught
years ago, not all of which were from a teacher or professor. During
my more than 30 years of teaching technical subjects, I have found that I’ve
developed an ability to listen carefully to questions students would ask and to
discern from those questions what was causing the student confusion and
standing as an obstacle to his/her learning. So if we are sincerely trying to
learn something, it is important to ask questions and to listen carefully to
what others are saying.
When I was asked to write this Back to Basics article, I thought about the
typical topics and realized that my expertise in basic research and develop-
ment might not be immediately relevant to the person who often reads these
articles. After some additional thought, though, I realized that I have learned
some basic concepts that over and over have proven they can be relied upon
for guidance.

APRIL 2018 • MATERIALS EVALUATION 455

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x education, training, and the facts of life
First: “We find what we look for!” Or, perhaps
conversely, “If we do not look, we will not find
anything.” So from the nondestructive inspection
(NDI) perspective, we need to look, and we need to
look in the right place, and we need to look for the
right thing. If we do and nothing is detected, that
suggests that within the capability of our method and
the procedure we are using, no imperfections are
present that fail to conform to the specifications, so
Figure 1. Magnified optical image (the large notch is actually 4 mm across); the
red vertical line indicates the visual location of the crack tip on the surface seen
in the image.
(a)
(b)
Figure 2. Fracture specimen shown in Figure 1: (a) the crack surfaces after the
specimen was fast fractured. The outer edges were originally opposing each
other, as were the inner edges; (b) an ultrasonic C-scan of the crack prior to fast
fracture. This image has been aligned with the image of the fracture specimen.
456 MATERIALS EVALUATION • APRIL 2018
the component at that point in time is safe and strong.
Of course, this may be based on a number of reason-
able assumptions.
Second: “Not all reasonable assumptions are
correct!” Consider, for example, Figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1 shows a test sample with a crack growing
from a machined detail, a notch. Figure 2a displays
the crack surfaces after the specimen was fast
fractured; the outer edges were originally opposing
each other, as were the inner edges. The lighter
regions show the portion of the crack surface that
formed during cyclic loading. Figure 2b is an ultrasonic
C-scan of the crack prior to fast fracture, and this
image has been aligned with the image of the fracture
specimen. The large white area to the left, neighboring
the large black region and a small white strip, is of the
upper surface of the notch seen in Figure 1 where the
black region is due to a pinhole for loading; the echo
from this feature is outside the window used for
scanning the crack. The variation in crack length from
one edge to the other is apparent, so visual inspection
would have reported different lengths depending on
which side was accessible for observation. The gray
area in the C-scan is caused by a region where the
crack faces are partially in contact and allow some
sound to be transmitted.
Often with theoretical predictions or modeling,
assumptions are made that should be, but often are
not, validated. At times assumptions may be made
regarding the condition of a component being
inspected, which may be reasonable, but may prove to
be incorrect. For example, a component to be
inspected to determine if a crack is present may be
assumed to be in a condition where the crack faces
are not tightly closed and thus a particular procedure
for inspecting for the crack may be used. If the
component is constrained, at the time of inspection,
in a manner that the crack front experiences compres-
sive loading, the inspection may not detect the crack
or perhaps not properly size the crack.
Third: “First you assume and then you presume!”
Many years ago I was asked to take over a project
from a colleague who had decided to become an
administrator; I agreed. The project was directed at
developing the capability for detecting deterioration in
concrete bridge substructures using infrared thermal
imaging, and was well on its way when I took over. At
that point a graduate student was doing theoretical
modeling as well as fieldwork. The fieldwork involved
hanging large pieces of black plastic to create an
envelope of sorts, so that heat from a propane heater
could be injected to raise the surface temperature of
the part of the structure being inspected. The idea was
to create a thermal gradient that concrete deterioration
would disrupt, allowing our thermal imaging system to
detect it; we couldn’t depend on ambient heating to
do the job during our inspection. I was puzzled by this
whole approach, not technically but practically. Not all
bridge structures are conveniently located over a little-
traveled country road like the one we were using for
our study. I started looking at reports from the large
multiprogram project to understand why this approach
was being pursued. What I discovered—news to me
but hindsight for the program directing team—was
. . . the design team members were
taught to design to avoid problems
during the design life . . .
that the various different approaches being worked
were various forms of “noncontact inspection.” The
attribute of noncontact to me seemed “sexier” rather
than “smart,” so I dug further and discovered that the
initial objective was to develop “rapid” means of
inspecting bridge structures, decks, superstructure, or
substructure. During the initial project planning, the
team considered a number of candidate approaches
that might be performed rapidly and decided that
several promising approaches were noncontact, so the
actual desired attribute morphed into noncontact and
the necessity for the procedure to be rapid was no
longer the goal. The presumption was that noncontact
inspection modalities were rapid, and it was then
assumed that development of noncontact procedures
was to be pursued. So while infrared thermal imaging
could rapidly, and without contact, detect evidence of
deterioration in concrete substructures, the procedure
we were developing was slow and cumbersome under
ideal conditions. Nondestructive inspection, to be
successful, must involve a carefully conceived
procedure that has been validated from start to
finish—always carefully considering the assumptions.
I’ll end by sharing the evolution of my under-
standing of design for inspection. Having interacted
with the nondestructive testing community for many
years, on countless occasions I would hear a lament
about how more attention to designing for
inspectability would improve reliability of the inspec-
tion of many components. This idea seemed to be well
reasoned, so a number of years ago I even developed,
through an ASNT Faculty Grant, a PowerPoint lecture
for those teaching design to encourage aspiring
designers to do just that; it was for the most part
ignored. Although I taught at an engineering college,
I taught subjects that supported design, but I did
not actually teach the design process. Then, my
department decided it needed an introductory course
to help students place in context all the courses they
were required to take; I agreed to develop and teach
the course. This gave me a chance to learn about how
design was being taught. What I discovered was a
surprise, but explained why design for inspectability
was (and often still is) not happening.
As it turns out, for many products the factor of
safety of the design assures they will survive despite
misuse for the length of any warranty, so only inspection
associated with upfront quality assurance is needed
(Figure 3). However, for more critical systems, especially
those where structural integrity is important, the
situation is a little more multifaceted but the design
process used is actually similar to the noncritical
products. For the most part, the design team members
were taught to design to avoid problems during the
design, or service, life. The rationale is based on the
notion that historically, our understanding of how
deterioration due to service affects material systems is
Quality assurance NDI
Requirements +
commissioning
-capabilities
-service life
Planning
Fabrication Operation/ service
& design
Constraints
Condition
-cost
-environment
Design life Life extension
Figure 3. Schematic diagram depicting the phases of a system from conception to
end of life. The graph of condition is hypothetical but suggests the condition
degrades from commissioning throughout the design life, and will continue to do
so if use is extended, erroneously referred to as “life extension.”
APRIL 2018 • MATERIALS EVALUATION 457
ME BACK TO BASICS w
x education, training, and the facts of life
based on materials testing. We determine the limit on
load-bearing capacity based on a test procedure. We
determine fatigue life, although this is somewhat
statistical, from testing. We determine creep response
from testing. In all of these situations, the design team
adjusts the capabilities, or sizes the components, to
avoid problems. So all that is needed to assure that
the systems they have designed will endure the
lifetimes for which they were designed is to conduct
an upfront inspection to make sure it was properly
made. And for the most part this works well until the
design life is reached, long after the design team is
out of the picture.
As we all can observe, there are numerous critical
systems (such as bridges, power plants, water and
sewage systems, and aircraft) that, once they reach
Hopefully, as we as a society replace our aging
infrastructure, we will modify our design
paradigm to recognize the inevitability of use
extension and truly plan for it . . .
their design life, appear to be in good condition—
which was as intended by the design team. However,
at that point in time, service has actually caused dete-
rioration and the material components are much
closer to the condition where issues the design team
intentionally sought to avoid are likely to occur and
where the expectation by the design team was that
the system would be removed from service. But as any
good asset manager will tell you, it makes no sense to
retire a perfectly good system when we can undertake
a process called “life extension.” Oops one: the
system is not perfectly good and never was perfect,
but rather contained numerous insignificant imperfec-
tions that may have grown during the service life, but
are too small to be detected. Oops two: now it
becomes necessary to assure that the system that was
expected to be removed from service can be safely
used longer; so, full disclosure, “life extension” often
becomes “use extension.” And along with this occur
the trials and tribulations of those faced with
conducting comprehensive nondestructive inspections
to assure the safety of a system that the design team
never expected to need to be inspected and therefore
gave no thought during planning and design to
supporting such inspection. Ideally, the design team
458 MATERIALS EVALUATION • APRIL 2018
should have suggested when and where to inspect
and what the imperfections of concern are.
Furthermore, since typical engineers have little
background or experience with nondestructive inspec-
tion or materials deterioration from service environ-
ments, or loading, they would not have been able to
properly address the issues had they given design for
inspectability consideration during the planning
phase. The only way to deal with this problem is to
recognize the historical fact that critical systems, while
designed for a specific lifetime, are routinely kept in
service beyond that anniversary, so the design team
needs to anticipate this. But to do that, the team
needs to include an NDE engineer as a full-fledged
member. ASNT, through the new Engineering Division
of the Technical and Educational Council, is trying to
cultivate engineers who understand NDT and who are
able to communicate collaboratively with NDT inspec-
tors. The Engineering Division also hopes to identify
the background needed for individuals to be capable
of being on a design team as an NDE engineer.
Hopefully, as we as a society replace our aging
infrastructure, we will modify our design paradigm to
recognize the inevitability of use extension and truly
plan and design for it; this can only happen if an NDE
engineer is on the design team.
In summary, “we find what we look for,” but often
“we first presume and then assume” assumptions
that are reasonable but ultimately turn out to be
incorrect. Actual data as opposed to assumed or theo-
retical data, or information, are inherently more
reliable and less risky for making decisions, especially
regarding structural integrity and safety, which are part
and parcel of what nondestructive inspection and
evaluation is all about for critical structures and
systems. w x
AUTHOR
John C. Duke, Jr.: Professor Emeritus Biomedical Engi-
neering & Mechanics and Director, Damage Science &
Mechanics Laboratory, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia;
email jcduke@vt.edu