Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) is **vital** for identifying flaws such as porosity or cracks in critical components. A variety of methods are currently used (X-Ray CT, Dye Penetrant, Magnetic Particle, Process Compensated Resonance Testing, Eddy Current, Thermography) but have serious limitations (difficult to implement, cannot find closed 'contact cracks' (very fine cracks where regions of the crack face are in contact or separated by only a few microns) or are too slow), severely hindering the adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) in mission critical applications.
The aerospace and medical sectors are beginning to integrate AM (also referred to as 3D printing) into the production of critical components. In contrast to conventional manufacturing methods, AM offers the benefits of having low material waste and the ability to create highly optimised designs in a single stage. However, these parts come with a unique range of defects and flaws which, combined with complex designs, presents challenges for all conventional NDT techniques.
With this shifting manufacturing paradigm comes a **growing need** for rapid and cost-effective NDT to be delivered at-scale for AM components. This is compounded by the acknowledged general need for the creation of suitable NDT reference samples for technique validation, optimisation, and demonstration. In order to develop and certify these techniques, reference sample sets must be produced in statistically relevant quantities with **controlled,** **representative** **flaws**.
Together with their expert consortium (comprising of global OEM manufacturers, AM experts and NDT specialists), **Theta Technologies** has identified the above market gaps can be addressed by their crack-seeding technology (flaw **creation** solution) which will be validated through their **RD1-TT**, a patented solution for rapid and controlled 'contact crack' **detection**, which provides turnkey nonlinear resonance NDT sentencing for both AM and conventional manufacture.
The overall aim for this 21-month ATI project is to unlock AM at-scale by evidencing the capability and value of nonlinear resonance NDT in the detection of AM-specific flaw types through robust Probability-of-Detection studies.