My Experience as Volunteer ambassador for ASNT

 Hei Inspektører!

This was my experience as a volunteer ambassador for ASNT.

The fragrance of coffee had awakened me when there was hardly any sunlight outside, although in reality the excitement had done so long before. I left the hotel and walked to the street and 8 minutes later I was entering the convention center. 

A large building in downtown Phoenix had greeted me the evening before just after arriving in the city from my home in Monterrey, N.L. I had arrived one day before on a hasty visit just to introduce myself to James. He  and his team are those kind of people who greet you with a friendly smile and make you feel welcomed. They explained to me briefly what things we would do as an ambassador the next day and he handed me a t-shirt, but not before thanking my presence and that of my fellow volunteers.

Tuesday, 7:15 am and I was arriving to this great building. I went down the escalators and there was the event.

 I showed up proudly wearing my yellow t-shirt that with its bright color reminded me of the fluorescence of penetrating liquids and after saying good morning and waiting a couple of minutes, they assigned me an area.

I was first supporting a little with the arrangements of the day, that allowed me to discover the details and effort of the ASNT team to make this event possible. One of the things that seemed most interesting to me was the attention they paid to printing a newspaper every day. 

This was very useful when guiding the participants who came to look for their registration and even more exciting was the fact of seeing a photo of me on the second page. I immediately showed it to my new volunteer friends and that made me feel delighted about this newspaper, and, of course, shared this photo of this in my facebook. 

People began to arrive little by little, first the exhibitors, who apparently started the day with a great attitude and who were hoping to start before 9:00 am. Then the participants, people who made their enthusiasm notice and inspired great experience and knowledge of many years.

   I realized that some people found the red, yellow and green ribbons a great idea to identify who was most comfortable with a handshake and close conversation and also who preferred to keep a little more distance when speaking.

I had placed 3 ribbons on my ID at the time of completing my registration the day before, and each one felt like a badge worthy of being honorably worn. (mine could read "Volunteer, International and ASNT Level III")

I liked being able to meet some acquaintances and briefly guide them on how to print their identification or even comment on the use of the app and where the conferences of the day were located.

I also loved meeting new people, I was able to talk with inspectors, collegues and other levels III from other parts of the world who traveled to Arizona with the sole purpose of visiting this event. Each talk was an opportunity to get to know a bit of the NDT perspective from the voice of the main actors in each area and little by little I was infused with encouragement and good humor knowing that we could finally be at a main event again. And what a great way to do it!

After a few hours more fellow volunteers would have arrived, I asked them to take a photo to remember with our yellow shirts and with a smile I said goodbye at the end of my shift. 

At the end of the day I was able to enter the showroom where I found advanced ultrasound and MFL equipment that I would be very pleased to have in my company very soon, I greeted some friends that I met in the corridors and I bought as many ASNT books as they could fit in my luggage.

I look forward to and excited about next year's event.

Thanks to ASNT staff for allowing me to participate in this great experience!

You can find this post on ASNT Blog!  All rights for posting & printing permissions for ASNT.

Hei Inspektører!

Some days ago I have been somewhat focused on welding issues, and returning a little to the basics mainly on safety issues and I remember that during my initial preparation I noticed that there was a certain aura of mystery around the use of argon gas in welding processes with regarding safety.

For me it was interesting because I was just making a change of professional focus from the medical area to the industrial area. At that time I looked for some clinical studies that talked about the subject and did not find much.

I was reviewing some clinical studies this week (mainly with the New Jersey State Department of Health, the Mayo Clinic and some other sources of this type of information)

It caught my attention that, currentlyNo occupational exposure limits have been established for Argon. However, it can present a health risk. Workplace safety practices must always be followed.

Argon decreases the amount of oxygen available. It is important to periodically measure the oxygen content to verify that it is at least 19.5% by volume.

Health risks:

• Acute health effects:
• The following acute (short-term) health effects can occur immediately or shortly after exposure to Argon:
• Contact can irritate and burn the skin and eyes.
• Contact with liquefied argon can cause frostbite injury to the skin.
• Very high levels of argon can decrease the amount of oxygen in the air and cause suffocation with symptoms of headache, rapid breathing, dizziness, weakness, tiredness, drowsiness, tremors, loss of coordination and judgment, and the feeling of fading.
• Higher levels can cause nausea, vomiting, unconsciousness, coma, and death.

Chronic health effects

The following chronic (long-term) health effects can occur at some time after exposure to Argon and can last for months or years:

Cancer Risk:

According to the information currently available to the department, studies are lacking to determine the carcinogenicity of argon.

Reproductive health risks

According to the information currently available, studies are lacking to determine the reproductive health potential of argon.

Other effects

• Studies are lacking to determine argon's ability to cause other chronic effects.
• There is no specific test for argon-related medical tests, however, if overexposure is suspected or symptoms are experienced, medical attention should be sought.

Reach me on YouTube! 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-8tco_5QLOuCdWc8y9TQ7Q

 Hei Inspektører!

Within the use of MFL equipment it is common to hear about sensors or Hall-type elements, but what is this and how does it work?

The Hall element is a solid state sensor that responds in a linear way to the increase in the intensity of the magnetic field that passes through it.

The main advantage of the device is the small size of its active area. Hall effect devices as small as 0.1 by 0.025 mm have been reported to have been used in the evaluation of bearing races, with a sensitivity of 0.5 volts per ampere (tesla (0.05 volts per ampere / kilogauss) of active areas. The second advantage of these devices is that they can be aligned to measure the normal (Hy) or tangential (Hx) component of the flow leakage field of a discontinuity, with an amplitude that does not depend on the speed of the sensor over the discontinuity as is the case with the coils.

The main disadvantage of Hall arrays is that, like many other solid-state devices, no two have exactly the same sensitivity and therefore, when they are used in this type of group arrangement, some time must be spent balancing. electronic fix. Also, because these devices require activation, additional circuitry is needed and, since they are less robust than a coil, they require encapsulation. This protection can often lead to a relatively large lift-off between the Hall element's active area and the inspected surface and the sensitivity is reduced.

Recent advances in solid state technology allow Hall-type elements to be combined with power supplies and amplifiers on a single chip. Such devices also have good temperature characteristics and have been shown to be useful as inspection sensors at elevated temperatures. Outputs of 75 volts per tesla (7.5 millivolts per gauss) are possible with these devices.

ASTM E 1571

 Hei Inspktører.

This week I was reviewing some information on cable inspection by MFL, I came across a very interesting document called ASTM E1571.

This covers information for the examination of rope wire by Electromagnetism, ML and MFL to detect flaws and / or changes in the cross-sectional area of ​​these materials in diameters up to 2.5 "mainly.

One of the techniques that most caught my attention was the so-called alternating field MFL where the alternating field MFL probe rotates at high speed around the longitudinally moved test material and scans its surface helically.

In this case the rotating probe "spot" scans only a small area of ​​the material surface at any one time, that is, during the test, it is focused on a very small part of the total surface.

Thus, even an extremely small material defect represents a significant disturbance with respect to this relatively small material surface. In this case elongated material defects are indicated over their entire length.

Within the general limitations of this document we first find that it is applicable only to ferromagnetic materials, that it is very difficult to detect failures in or near terminations of ferromagnetic steel cables and connections and that deterioration of a purely metallurgical nature (brittleness, fatigue, etc. .) may not be easily distinguishable.

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