20 years after – revision of ISO 14096 for NDT film digitization and present available hardware in the light of NDT 4.0

CEN released in 2003 standard EN 14096 on requirements on film digitization systems applied for industrial radiographic films, even before standardization of the application of imaging plates for NDT as the first digital detector applied in industrial radiography. This standard was later taken over by ISO forced by Japanese activities. 20 years later a revision is on-going to adapt it to the present technology available in the market. Until recently the application of this standard was limited to only a very few systems based on point or line scanning. Worldwide this standard is only fulfilled by 3 manufacturers from Japan, Taiwan and Germany. The latest system on the market offers drastically reduced scanning times, for the first time based on area scanning. If digital workflows in radiographic testing have to be realized in NDT 4.0 scenarios, then X-ray film digitization is the critical first step in the digital data flow. Here it has to be guaranteed that the information on the flawed indications will not be lost. Therefore, the update of ISO 14096 is an essential contribution for NDT 4.0 and the application of fast and novel X-ray film digitization systems. This contribution summarizes the important changes in the revision of ISO14096 and provides an overview on the today available scanner techniques.