South African engineers attending the World Conference on Non-Destructive Testing (WCNDT) in April qualify for continuous professional development (CPD) points, says WCNDT 2012 chairperson Dr Manfred Johannes.

The state of the global NDT art will be showcased at the 18th WCNDT in Durban, which Johannes describes as the veritable World Cup of NDT, which South Africa won the right to stage in the face of stiff competition from the UK and Australia.

A total of 450 papers will be delivered in the five-day conference at which there will be 150 exhibitors, more than 80% of them international.

Currently, 90% of the 1 000 delegates who have registered to date are from overseas, with India bringing a 150-strong delegation. China’s delegation is expected to be equally large and the South Korean delegation will be 50-to-60 strong.

“The one problem we have is that we are missing South African engineers,” says Johannes, who is also an NDT specialist at South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

“Engineers should take advantage of this to get their CPD points,” he urges in a videoed Mining Weekly Online interview.

South African universities, he says, give little attention to NDT, a science that enables engineers to identify faults ahead of failure, not dissimilar to the way in which medical radiologists are able to look into the human body and identify what needs to be fixed.

A preconference seminar on digital imaging, used in radiography, ultrasonic and eddy current testing, will take place on the Saturday and Sunday ahead of the conference – April 14 and 15 – and the conference itself from April 16 to 20.

Dr Baldev Raj of India’s Ministry of Technology will be on hand to help South African engineers understand digital imaging more comprehensively.

The South African Institute of Non-Destructive Testing is in the process of putting a Master of Science degree in place, which will embrace plant reliability, condition monitoring and NDT.

Those wishing to attend the WCNDT can register by logging on to www.wcndt2012.org.za.
 

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