Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation (NDT&E) is one of the major requirements in aerospace structural design. Hardly any of the components manufactured is not allowed to pass quality assurance without having gone through any of the various NDT procedures being around and certified. For damage tolerant design as used in aviation NDT is a prerequisite. Appropriate use of NDT guarantees safety in aerospace and is thus a subject of highest attention.

Although aerospace industries have to clearly stick to certified NDT procedures, there is a large amount of technology being currently developed within the engineering science discipline, which is worth to be discussed with respect to their potential of being applied. The widespread use of emerging materials such as CFRP composites or new manufacturing processes for aerospace structural components such as additive manufacturing has also given rise to many new questions regarding materials’ and structural reliability and manufacturing methods in the light of NDT&E, from a research as well as a manufacturing, assembly and operations point of view. Automation in NDT using robotics and structural health monitoring are other major issues being highly discussed within the aeronautics community. Finally there is the handling of large amounts of data in NDT currently discussed within the context of ‘big data’, which requires appropriate handling. All of this needs to be discussed within the frame of prognostics and health management, being a subject increasingly elaborated on from the research as well as the application side.

To communicate latest R&D achievements to industrial applicants on the one hand and to discuss advanced and improved methods both with scientists as well as industrial researchers and applicants on the other, the Symposium for NDT in Aerospace has been established in 2008 and organised on an annual basis since 2010. It has been run in places worldwide all around the globe where aerospace has a home including Hamburg/Germany, Montreal/Canada, Augsburg/Germany, Singapore, Madrid/Spain, Bremen/Germany, Bengaluru/India and Xiamen/China so far. The 10^th Symposium for NDT in Aerospace will now be held in October 2018 in Dresden/Germany.

Major topics to be discussed among others at this event will include the physics of NDT, sensors and material interaction, additive manufacturing, design of complete inspection systems with a focus on robotics, data evaluation in the context of ‘big data’ and prognostics and health management. A focus will also be placed towards improvement in inspection speed and transfer of laboratory NDT into production and manufacturing process integrated testing for in-line inspection. Within the symposium also a special student session is considered to provide a frame for the next generation to link into the scientific and industrial community.

Presentations are expected to have a strong relation to current and future applications for materials characterisation and component inspection within a laboratory, production, maintenance, repair and overhaul environment. The contents may range from existing to new results as well as new and challenging NDT ideas still under research and development. It is hoped to combine and bring together the experience of industrial researchers and practitioners with the ideas and creativity of scientists to enable a fruitful dialogue for further improvement of NDT in Aerospace.

This Symposium of NDT in Aerospace is intended to provide uniqueness also in a way that major portions will be held as a single session event only. In that case every speaker will be given a voice to the plenum before presenting and discussing the respective subject in a special session in more detail. Well selected invited speakers will address topics of high relevance in special keynote lectures and specific reception-typed discussion fora will be established as parallel events where different speakers as well as exhibitors will be able to extensively discuss NDT topics of relevance to aerospace during late afternoon sessions. This will allow symposium attendees to learn more about relevant issues of NDT in aerospace.

 

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Boller
Saarland University

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Henning Heuer
Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS

Dr.-Ing. Matthias Purschke
German Society for Non-Destructive Testing (DGZfP) 

The Free State of Saxony is an important location for the aviation industry. Around 160 companies and research facilities employ more than 7,000 people and generate an annual turnover of around 1.4 billion euros.

The players include the Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Service GmbH (AMTES) at Leipzig airport, where among others Antonov cargo aircraft are maintained. The cargo service provider Volga-Dnepr Airlines with the world's largest AN 124 cargo aircraft fleet is also based in Leipzig. At Dresden airport, Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH (EFW) (a daughter company of ST Aerospace and Airbus) converts passenger to cargo aircraft. IABG mbH and IMA GmbH, also based in Dresden, are globally reknown companies in aeronautics active in the field of ​​materials and structural testing. In addition, there is a large number of small and medium-sized companies, such as Cotesa GmbH, Hightex Verstärkungsstrukturen GmbH or EAST-4D^® Carbon Technology GmbH, which manufacture components for the aircraft industry in the Free State of Saxony.