Inspection procedure or Laboratory approach: the influence of the environment on analysis results

Both Quality Assurance and productivity requirements make an inspection of a primary circuit component to be carried out within the framework of detailed procedures. These documents include settings of the inspection equipment and criteria for the analysis of signals. Conversely, the evaluation of the performances of an inspection tool in the laboratory requires as low constraints as possible. When considering the same test object and the same non-destructive testing method, these differences in environment may lead to differences in the analysis result which can be quite significant in terms of performance of the method but which have in fact the same consequences in terms of acceptance, repair or rejection. The action 5 of the PISC III exercise on steam generator integrity has had the objective of evaluating inspection procedures but the interest in the samples was obvious to many laboratories which saw an opportunity of evaluation of test methods and tools. Regardless of the actual features of the defects which are not yet known, it appeared interesting to carry out a comparison on a small number of test tubes from the blind boxes, between results (eddy current measurements) obtained through the use of an official inspection procedure and results obtained in the laboratory