Paul Lang, chief global strategy officer for the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) and executive director for ASNT Certification Services LLC (ASNT CS), shares his thoughts on trends and liquid penetrant testing.
He oversees all ASNT certification, accreditation, and standards activities with a shared vision of strengthening and expanding ASNT’s global presence through its portfolio of products and services. Lang served 21 years in the US Navy, retiring as a Chief Warrant Officer. He has led engineering departments, intermediate repair facilities, and served as a local government inspector performing repair and NDT oversight for the US Navy. He also led training and audit teams that provided training and rigorous evaluation of the Navy’s engineering operations and quality assurance programs. After retiring from the Navy, Lang joined an internationally renowned insurance and inspection company providing risk assessments on facilities of various industry sectors such as power generation and large manufacturing along with supervising a regional jurisdictional inspection force for in-service boiler and pressure equipment. He joined ASME in December 2013 as Director of Audit & Inspections and moved to lead the technical aspects of all ASME Conformity Assessment Certification programs in 2016, recently overseeing all engineering operations and services activities." Paul joined ASNT in 2022.
Michelle: We wanted to talk trends. Is there anything you've noticed lately with liquid penetrant testing and trends?
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Paul: So I'll start by going backwards, let's say for just for historical purposes. Cause when you ask the question, everybody kind of says, well, liquid penetrant testing hasn't changed in, in years and true. Um, from its early inception, it does the exact same thing. The framework for doing the test really has not changed. You clean the surface, you put the penetrant on, you let it sit, you wipe it off, you put the developer on, let it sit, wipe it off, look at the results. But what has changed over the years, and last 20 or so years, it's been the materials we use and the techniques that we use. So even though we still have that same model framework, we have made great advances in the penetrant material that we use, and also the developer.
So they're made with sensitivities now to be able to look for various types of defects on the surface of materials, safer for the environment, safer for the individual. So they're tailored now very specifically to the new materials, the technology that's going on around us. So I think even though the framework for the method is stayed mostly the same, the penetrants, the materials, the techniques that we're using in that has really advanced to get us really what we're looking for within a liquid penetrant test. Sounds good. I know in the article you mentioned too, that it was one of the first certifications NDT professionals usually get. It typically is because, like I prefaced in the very beginning, it's kind of simple.
Like I said in the article, if you were very strict to the script, it really does throw off the test, and you really don't get the results you're looking for. So though it's one of the easier ones, it's not as glamorous as UT phased array or RT, it is still widely used, it's widely effective, but it really must be done correctly in order to get the results you're looking for.
I'll probably end every question, because I'll hammer this away—training, experience, qualification, certification are absolutely a must in the NDT industry for any of the methods that we do. And this helps get that high quality results you're looking for when you're doing these type of tests.
