The Future of NDT Looks Bright from ASNT's Annual Conference

ASNT’s 2016 Annual Conference took place this week in Long Beach, CA and was a special event celebrating “75 years of Success in Creating a Safer World.” The event brought together over 2,000 technicians, researchers, and other professionals from around the world to discuss ideas, best practices, new technologies, and lessons learned on nondestructive testing (NDT). With more than 200 exhibitors, there was certainly something to gain for everyone in the NDT community.

The conference kicked off Tuesday morning with Dr. Steven Shepard, founder of Thermal Wave Imaging, Inc. (TWI), giving the Mehl/Lester Honor Lecture. Dr. Shepard shared lessons learned from his 30 years of experience in thermography. After the lecture, technical meetings were available for attendees with a focus on NDT reliability, NDE of railroads, digital radiography, magnetic particle testing (MT), and penetrant testing (PT) techniques. ASNT also organized a special event, A Day of STEM, for over 300 local high school students and teachers to learn about NDT and conduct hands-on experiments on magnetic particle testing.

Wednesday morning’s keynote speaker was Leland Melvin who shared his inspiring story of being an athlete in the NFL to becoming an engineer and astronaut for NASA. Melvin discussed his role in shearography testing at NASA and shared pictures and videos from his two missions on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis. After the keynote address, a variety of technical sessions were available to attendees, including NDT in the petroleum and chemical processing industries, structural health monitoring, phased array ultrasonics, computed tomography, radiation safety, and aerospace inspection. The last day of the conference will wrap up with sessions covering education and training issues in NDT, personnel resources in NDT, piping and plant NDT, materials characterization, electromagnetic methods, ultrasonics, and advancing NDT technologies.

ASNT currently has members in 84 countries and the industry itself is growing rapidly. There’s a positive job outlook for people looking to pursue a career in nondestructive testing, and many businesses are currently hiring. I hope leaders in their respective fields will continue to share their knowledge and help advance the NDT community through organizations like ASNT.

The following are upcoming ASNT events relevant to the Inspectioneering community:

• 26th ASNT Research Symposium
• 13-16 March 2017, Hyatt Regency Riverfront, Jacksonville, FL
  
  
• International Chemical and Petroleum Industry Inspection Technology (ICPIIT)
• 17-19 May 2017, Galveston Island Convention Center, Galveston, TX
  
  
• Ultrasonics for NDT and Digital Imaging 20
• 26-28 June 2017, Foxwoods Resort & Casino, Mashantucket, CT
  
  
• ASNT Annual Conference 2017
• 30 October-2 November 2017, Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, Nashville, TN.