-Book Reviews The nondestructive testing equipment and consumables market in the EEC Frost and Sullivan, $4000

The study is concerned with the market for NDT eqdipment and consumables in._l.he European Community. It covers examination techniques, acoustic emission, eddy current, gamma and X-radiography, liquid penetrant, magnetic and ultrasonics techniques, all of which do not impair the subsequent performance of a product or structure. The study contains details of applications, market by product type, market by country, market by end user, marketing strategy, development of techniques and applications, the influence of Japan and the USA, the supplier situation and conclusions.

The major areas of NDT application are aerospace, automotive, petrochemical, power generation and primary metals; materials covered are metals, ceramics and fibre-reinforced composites. The significance of NDT is based on its application within a quality control function during manufacture, eg in aerospace, in the food industry and increasingly in the monitoring of mechanical stressed products such as pressure vessels where catastrophic failure could cause serious loss of life. A further factor in NDT usage is the commercial and technical restraints of weight and cost when developing new products. The increasing application of fracture mechanics analysis on the significance of defects emphasizes the importance of NDT as a quality control tool-not just an end of the line inspection technique.

The market by product report shows that within the European Community there will be an overall increase in consumption of 10%. Ultrasonic testing will remain the market leader, with a reduction in X and gamma radiography and radiographic film, although radiographic imaging will increase

because of its speed and cost effectiveness. Acoustic emission is expected to grow within industry once confidence in its use has been established.

The market by country report establishes that the FRG will be the biggest user and supplier of NDT whilst the UK is expected to show the biggest growth. The long term trend is expected to be in the mechanization of NDT processes in EC countries. The major end user of NDT will be aerospace, with a notable increase in the petrochemical industry. This increase could be at the expense of power generation as a result of a reduction in power station building programmes. Marketing strategies employ little advertising and rely on direct customer contact on site at exhibitions and conferences and using journals. The industry in this respect has changed little since 1945 apart from the introduction of computer control, signal processing and sophisticated mechanical handling.

The development of techniques and applications over the last ten years has been concerned with mechanization and machine interpretation in the aerospace and automotive industries. The underlying reasons for this are speed of inspection, together with high levels of accuracy, repeatability and a reduction in the sentencing time of a component which has previously been undertaken manually. The ratio between capital equipment and consumable costs varies considerably between NDT disciplines. The introduction of mechanization may result in the lower consumable usage: magnetic particle, liquid penetrant and radiography being examples. Direct radiographic imaging equipment is expensive but critical selection of product examination could result in

large film savings. The EC is self-supporting in all aspects of NDT and is an exporter; however, the Americans and Japanese have established strong links with EC companies eg acoustic emission technology, ultrasonics (mechanical handling) and X-ray film.

Conclusions

The NDT market in the EC community is expected to grow at an average rate of 2-3% between 1989 and 1993 although radiographic film sales are likely to fall.

The biggest growth will be in the techniques that lend themselves to automation, giving increased inspection speeds, improvement in accuracy, repeatability and a removal of the expensive labour element. Ultrasonics and radiographic imaging are in the forefront because of their ability to be automatically mechanized to examine individual components.

Comments

The report is very interesting, although generally predictable. The main problem with mechanization (apart from obvious examples in the aerospace and automotive industries) is the prohibitive cost.

It is agreed that the original NDT disciplines are generally being used exactly as they were 50 years ago. Therefore a major part of all NDT inspection will be by individual operators who carry out difficult, boring, but increasingly important inspection operations on a wide variety of components and industrial structures. This operation, it is also suggested, will increase at a comparable or even greater rate, than mechanization of NDT.

J. D. Lavender Lavender International NDT Ltd

108 N DT & E International April 1 991