Study on effectiveness of education and training for ultrasonic examiner in austenitic stainless steel piping welds

The ultrasonic examination personnel are required to have high-level abilities such as defect detection, classification of detected echoes and so on, in the ISI of nuclear power plant in Japan. For that purpose, the examination personnel of the inspection companies are trained to learn and maintain these abilities. In general, the importance of education and training for the ultrasonic examiners is recognized. However, the effectiveness of education and training to enhance the abilities of the ultrasonic examiners has not been clarified. This study investigates the advantages of education and training for the ultrasonic examiners using the defect detection test in austenitic stainless steel piping welds specimen. From the analysis and evaluation of examination results, the major improvement of the defect detection capabilities after education and training was shown. Therefore, the effectiveness of education and training to improve the abilities of the ultrasonic examiners was demonstrated in austenitic stainless steel piping welds. (author)