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-New equipment compression strength of the wall, indicating the depth to which the wall has become friable, the thickness of the remaining solid wall, the compression strength of the wall, and the presence of cavities beyond the wall. Heidemij Adviesbureau B V, 1 Lovinklaan, P.O. Box 33, 6800 LE Arnhem, Netherlands On-site training and certification of US reacto r i nspecto rs Nineteen British-made steel pipes and pipe sections containing hidden implanted flaws have been transported to the United States where Inqual, an Anglo-American joint venture, are assisting US nuclear utilities and inspection vendors to train and qualify inspectors, equipment and procedures for performing primary circuit ultrasonic examinations on US reactors. The company was set up to supply state-of-the-art expertise in ultrasonic reactor inspection to the US market following important changes made to one of the design codes mandatory for the US nuclear industry. These came about as a result of industry and political interests in ensuring that reactor inspection standards are uniformly high and they have been achieved by the introduction of two Appendices to Section XI of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Code requirements. The ASME Appendices require power station operators and reactor service companies who perform primary circuit ultrasonic examinations to train and qualify inspectors, equipment and procedures. They are required to undertake 'performance demonstrations" which are intended to show that their inspection programmes can reliably detect flaws in primary circuit components. The Inqual specimens, which are Alex Fieldenand Keity Leylandfrom the InspectionValidationCentrewith stainless and mild steel specimens containinghidden flaws supplied in both practice and qualification sets, will form part of a mobile training and test facility which will be taken to nuclear power stations and inspection company sites. The specimens range in size up to 41 cm in diameter and have walt thicknesses of up to 5 cm. They have been manufactured to represent a range of typical reactor plant pipework conditions, and the implanted flaws have been arranged to meet the new requirements. After training and testing candidate utilities and service companies, Inqual will compare the reported results with the known flaw locations and sizes, then report back to the customer on how well his operators, equipment and procedures have performed. The report will ultimately be used by the nuclear utilities as part of their licence safety cases. Inqual is a fully incorporated US company, with a major technical input from Britain's Inspection Validation Centre (IVC) which has been set up at Risley within AEA Technology's Reactor Services Business to check that the proposed ultrasonic inspection programme for Sizewell B is adequate to ensure detection of faults that could compromise the integrity of the reactor systems. The other partners are Sonaspection International, U K, (who designed and manufactured the specimens) and the NDX Corporation, and PH Diversified, of the USA. AEA Technology, Risley, Warrington, Cheshire WA3 6AT, UK Remote diagnostics for thickness gauges Remote monitoring, operation and software support for thickness gauges installed on rolling mills located anywhere in the world can now be provided by FAG (UK) Ltd. Gauges equipped with the new remote diagnostics feature can be supported from the company's UK factory by a dial up link enabling trouble-shooting and software maintenance over a telephone line. The feature, which comprises a modem and special software, is available on all new M21 5 series X-ray thickness gauges, M205/305 series isotope thickness gauges, M235 series 116 NDT & E International April 1991
