Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation (NDT&E) is one of the major requirements in aerospace structural design. Hardly any of the components manufactured is not allowed to pass quality assurance without having gone through any of the various NDT procedures being around. For damage tolerant design as used in aviation NDT is a prerequisite. Appropriate use of NDT guarantees safety in aerospace and is thus a subject of highest attention.
Major topics to be discussed among others at this event will include the physics of NDT, sensors and material interaction, design of complete inspection systems and data evaluation such as for automated image processing. A special focus will also be towards improvement in inspection speed and transfer of laboratory NDT into production and manufacturing process integrated testing for in-line inspection.
The Symposium of NDT in Aerospace will be run this time in a very unique and possibly novel way. In a single session all papers will be presented orally as short presentations without any discussion. This will allow all attendees to follow the full programme and to select which topic, possibly related to some exciting paper, he/she wants to further follow up in more detail. Further details of the papers as well as discussions will then take place in parallel sessions where each session is tailored in accordance to the needs of the topic it addresses as well as the papers being allocated to it. This will avoid the burden of swapping between sessions or missing any paper of relevance having been overseen. It may also provide room for important discussions on sometimes very relevant papers and topics, which often have to be suppressed due to time constraints.
Five reputable invited speakers have been won which will talk during one hour each including discussion on exciting subjects. Those include Prof. W. Arnold (formerly Saarland University) on Mechanical Properties of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Measured by CASSE and DIM on board Rosetta's Lander Philae, Dr. M. Bertovic (BAM) on psychological issues in the man-machine interface along NDT processes, Prof. S. Gopalakrishnan (Indian Inst. of Science) on Indian Initiatives in the Areas of Structural Health Monitoring and Integrated Vehicle Health Management, Dr. E. Lindgren (US Air Force WPAFBL) on Recent and Future Enhancements in NDI for Aircraft Structures and Prof. J. Qiu (Nanjing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics) on NDT Methods for Composites and Aerospace Engineering.
The symposium will be complemented by an exhibition of NDT technology providers, which has been completely sold out in the meantime. The symposium is also run adjacent to the Aerospace Electrical Systems Expo Europe, which takes place in Bremen/Germany too. Another important feature of the symposium not to be missed are the technical visits where visits to organisations such as in aviation (Airbus, Premium Aerotec) and space (OHB, ZARM) are targeted. All those features do allow ‘to kill more than two birds with a stone’ and are therefore worth for a visit to be considered.