ASNT Annual Conference

This year’s ASNT Annual Conference, which will be held from 28-31 October 2018 in Houston, Texas, USA, will have a new format. The schedule is Sunday through to Wednesday, instead of the traditional Monday through to Thursday. I have not heard the reason for the change but will find out when I get there and will pass this information on.

The ASNT Annual Conference is the largest dedicated gathering of industry professionals, equipment and technology suppliers, engineers and researchers working in the field of non-destructive testing and evaluation of materials in the world.

Attendance in Houston always goes up: in 2006, attendance jumped by 350; in 2010, it jumped by 500. This year, we are looking to break the record attendance from last year of more than 2100.
We hope that you will join us in Houston. You will have the opportunity to meet experts and influencers face-to-face, to learn about technological solutions to NDT challenges and to expand your professional network.

As a member of the Chemical/Petroleum Committee, one of my duties as a volunteer is to solicit authors for 12 presentations during the Chemical/Petroleum Presentation Session, which will be conducted all day on the Tuesday. It is a lot like ‘herding cats’, but it looks like we have been able to fill all of the slots.

The Chemical/Petroleum Session is a highlight because of the preponderance of chemical/petroleum facilities in the Gulf Coast area and the extensive NDT requirements to assure safe and consistent operation of these plants.

The UK has responded well to my request for presentations. Presenters from the UK include the following authors:

Tim Armitt, Lavender International, who has been conducting a considerable amount of work with the American Petroleum Institute on the subject of detection and sizing of high-temperature hydrogen attack (HTHA), a damage mechanism responsible for destructive pressure vessel failure in petroleum refineries. He will discuss the use of TULA transducers in HTHA inspections;
Keith Vine and David Alleyne, Guided Wave Ultrasonics, who will present a paper on gPIMS for underwater applications; and
Mike Smith, Eddyfi, who will describe the application of alternating current field measurement (ACFM) to welds on high-temperature piping.

Some of the additional presentations are given by:

Ankit Vajpayee, Russell Technology, Canada, who will introduce a new technology for the detection of carburisation damage in plant furnace tubes;
Dr Eugene Silverman, BSI Sentry, who will present a paper on performance, modelling, prediction and management using large ultrasound data populations; and
From Alaska, Ken Heaps, TEAM Industrial Services, who will discuss ultrasonic readings through coatings, and Caspar Wassink, Eddyfi, Canada, who will present on the practical and economic advantages of FMC/TFM.

Other sessions include phased array applications, NDT of bridges, acoustic emission, NDE engineering, additive manufacturing, probability of detection and computed tomography.
As always, the UK will be well represented in the exhibition hall and the meeting point will be at the BINDT booth. I look forward to seeing many old friends and meeting new ones. The North American Branch of BINDT will hold its AGM on the Monday evening, with the time and place to be posted at the BINDT booth.

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