Get NDT out of the Niche

NDT is a comparatively new field of science and technology. It has emerged through looking into applications of effects discovered in physics over the past. Many of these applications have initially been driven by medicine and life sciences on the one side but also by engineering on the other. While medicine has taken a lead in that activity since more than a century now engineering has gradually followed. Since actions performed in medicine as well as in engineering are both based on a certain amount of uncertainties due to lack of full knowledge sometimes, this lack has to be covered by conservatism or in other words by safety factors. Every technique which allows this lack to be reduced is therefore welcome. NDT is one of them. NDT has been developed as a technique in general that has to be performed by skilled personnel. This personnel has to be trained in accordance to standards being guaranteed through a certification process. So far, NDT has mainly served as a means to warranty quality in manufacturing and integrity in engineering structures' operational life. However, more could be done. With the emergence of high performance materials and with this high-performance engineering structures NDT has further increased in importance. Damage tolerance is a design principle, known and successfully applied for aerostructures in terms of light weight design. However, it is recently also increasingly applied in terms of lifetime extension in other areas of engineering such as civil. With this in mind NDT becomes a prerequisite and its significance expands. Engineering structures today therefore do not only have to be designed for performance but also for inspectability. This requires NDT to be in the designers' mind as well. Furthermore, since cost efficiency needs to be met and NDT can become a costly affair, automation of NDT is a further aspect to be explored and a trade study has to be performed in the end. All of this proves, that NDT cannot be a niche business anymore. The article will therefore describe where we stand currently, what is explored and what might have to be done in the future such that NDT comes out of the niche. It will also be shown in this context what contributions NDT.net has made over the past 30 years to make the road of NDT out of the niche to become a success.