Science and technology of non-destructive testing, evaluation and characterisation

The quality of life available to the majority of citizens of any country is a direct measure of its state of economy. India has shown the quality consciousness through its rich tradition, heritage, monuments and idols. From the heritage to the atomic, space and information age, India has matured as a nation endowed with expertise in relevant and critical technologies. In India there has been a sustained and comprehensive approach to the development of industries for production of precision, strategic and heavy components of high quality through the application of non-destructive evaluation (NDE)techniques and procedures. A large number of non-destructive testing techniques have been developed in India by strategic and core sectors for in-house requirements. Academic institutes have played a key role in nurturing excellence in the area. The knowledge base is made available to the needy industries. With the availability of these techniques, together with the advent of advanced electronics, innovations in sensor technology, availability of computers and signal and image processing methodologies, improvement in detection sensitivity and quantitative characterisation of defects and assessment of microstructural degradation have taken place. The outcome of these developments is the improvement in fitness for purpose of fabricated components and their performance in service with a possibility for their life extension. An example is the front line research carried out and the expertise developed at IGCAR in the area of NDT&E in the last two decades. The expertise has been effectively utilised for finding reliable, comprehensive and cost-effective solutions for many unique and challenging problems in strategic (nuclear, space, and defence) and core (power, chemical and petrochemical) sectors. In this paper an overview of the authors' experience in the developments and applications of advanced NDE methodologies for a variety of applications has been given.