On April 20, three days after a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 experienced an engine failure due to a fractured fan blade, resulting in the death of a passenger, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency airworthiness directive that requires operators of CFM56-7B engines with more than 30,000 flight cycles to perform a one-time ultrasonic inspection of all 24 fan blades to detect cracking.
MTC is a Nadcap accredited special processor, providing a complete range of NDT testing services and related chemical processing, primarily servicing the aerospace industry, with a unique niche service focused on titanium critical rotating parts.
Short range guided wave testing (SRGWT) is an application of guided ultrasonic sound waves using special types of probes. When the guided waves hit the discontinuities, the mode converted sound is reflected back and received by the transducer.
Nowhere is the need for material integrity more obvious than in medical devices that are implanted into human beings. A failed device inside an aircraft or power plant may, under some circumstances, cause a problem.
Ductile iron is an iron-carbon casting material whose matrix includes carbon in the form of nodular graphite particles. Rounded graphite nodules in the ductile iron matrix offer greater resistance to stress concentration when compared to graphite flakes (as in gray cast iron) and, therefore, inhibit the creation of cracks.
An important element in ensuring the quality of finished parts is nondestructive testing (NDT). NDT is the inspection of material or parts without impairing their future usefulness.
As a quality manager, it’s your worst nightmare. One of your best customers comes for a visit and brings a box of cracked parts that came from your plant. He wants to know how it happened, and how you are going to ensure it won’t happen again.
Due to the critical nature of nondestructive testing (NDT) in ensuring the safety and reliability of a plant, infrastructure, or facility, any technician performing NDT has to be trained and certified by an accredited body.