Structural integrity significance of round robin testing trials application to PISC III Action 3 Original Research Article

Non-destructive examination (NDE) plays an important role in the safety and structural integrity of plant components. Hence there is a need to assess if NDE will be able to furnish correct information on the status of structures concerning presence, location and sizing of flaws. It is to provide an experimental basis for such knowledge that NDE round robin testing trials like the programme for the inspection of steel components (PISC) carried out. An approach for evaluating NDE results in their structural integrity significance is presented in this paper and applied to PISC III Action 3 for assessing capabilities and limitations of NDE procedures and techniques. PISC results are processed so as to allow analyses and comparisons in terms of indices related to safety margins. The influence of inspection variables (equipment related parameters and flaw categorizations) and the performance of single teams are evaluated and presented in their structural integrity significance.