Phone: +49 (0)6898 100
04. September 2017
Currently, the "Non-Destructive Testing" (NDT) section of Saarschmiede under the project responsibility of Dr. Alexander Zimmer is supporting our customer Siemens in the SAFT development project. The abbreviation SAFT stands for "Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique". This is a method for improving the meaningfulness of results of automated, industrial ultrasonic testing. The aim of the development is the ability of testing with higher detection sensitivity even larger parts in the turbine area of combustion engines, which are subject to high loads, in order to guarantee safe operation of the machines.
Since the development of the necessary software has already reached a very advanced stage, a training course was carried out. In order to collect valuable feedback for the successful further development of the software, it was, among other items, subjected to a test under realistic conditions.
In addition to the inspectors of the disk-testing facility 6 and the inspection supervisors of Saarschmiede, the inspection supervisors of Siemens Power and Gas from Berlin and the project partner Vrana GmbH also participated in the training course.
Together with the developers, a test run of the method was carried out on a gas turbine disc prepared with test flaws. The technical results of this industrial application in the production flow turned out positive as was expected - the detection sensitivities achieved are significantly higher than in the case of traditional ultrasonic testing.
Moreover, within the training, items to be further developed were pointed out to enable a smooth, fast and cost-effective flow within the framework of serial production. A further comprehensive evaluation of the results is currently being worked out.
