particularly u~ful for on line repetitive inspection in manufacturing and in chemical plant monitoring. A collaborative project on the development of expert systems between Harwell Laboratory and The Welding Institute ba~d on ultrasonic test procedures is described.

38039 Stoelben, H.; Wehling, H.-J. Vibration monitoring of Kraftwerk Union pressurized water reactors - Review, present status, and further development Nuclear Technology, Vol. 80, No. 3, pp. 400-411 (Mar. 1988)

Incipient damage to mechanical structures may be detected early in time by deviations from normal dynamic behavior. For vibration monitoring of coupled systems, only a small number of transducers are ueces~ry, in general. On this basis, Kraftwerk Union has been involved in the development and construction of vibration monitoring systems for pressurized water reactors over the last 20 yr. The current state of the art permits vibration monitoring during normal operation by reactor personnel without expert assistance. The new Sus-g6 microprocessor- ba~d system allows further expansion toward an expert system.

37991 Anon Framatome develops an expert system to characterize defects Nuclear Engineering international, Vol. 32, No. 401, pp. 22-23, 26 (Dec. 1987)

The French company. Framatome, have developed a computerized ultrasonic

testing system to characterise weld defects called Siracus, which prints out a complete inspection report including graphics when an examination has been concluded.

37787 Monjaret. J.-L.; Nguyen, T.H.; Bieth, M. SIRACUS, an expert system for ultrasonic characterisation of welds (In French) Qualite Revue Pratique de Controle Industriel, No. 147, pp. 68-72 (Oct. 1987)

The expert system SIRACUS is intended as an aid to inspectors in determining the nature of indications encountered in the Ultrasonic testing of welds in pressure equipment. From the a priori position of a flaw, in a way dependent on context, SIRACUS propo~s a ~quence of scan directions giving the quickest possible convergence to a conclusion "volumetric or non-volumetric defect". The diagnostics, developed step by step, are based on allowing for a number of parameters such as directional reflectivity, echo shapes, dynamic echo behaviour, position relative to edge, and context (welding technique, reworking, etc.)

37737 Sheppard, L.M. Detecting material defects in real time Advanced Materials and Processes, Vol. 132, No. 5, pp. 53-60 (Nov. 1987)

Non destructive evaluation (NDE) techniques are being developed for on line process control. A variety of techniques are discusrcAt together with suitable applications. Future NDE systems might incorporate artificial intelligence with neural netwonk architecture for the signal processing module.

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© 1992 United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

48 NDT&E International Volume 25 Number 1 1992