TWI - UK (RTD Performer)
www.twi.co.uk

TWI is one of Europe's largest independent research and technology organisations. Based at Abington near Cambridge since 1946, TWI provides those in industry with technical support in welding, NDT and associated technologies. TWI has over 430 skilled staff and a turnover of 40 million Euros. Currently TWI is participating in or has completed approximately 35 European projects including several Framework V, CSG and CRAFT projects.

Reasons for participating
The above work packages will be carried out by TWI's world leading centre of excellence in NDT that has just been elevated to group status in recognition of the major advances made by the former section in recent years. The research will be backed by the whole TWI organisation that includes the Structural Integrity and Materials departments. TWI has 35 qualified NDT inspection engineers with academic, research and industrial qualifications. Approximately 10 of these engineers specialise in NDT methods for the inspection of composite materials and have extensive experience of solving NDT inspection problems throughout the energy industry. TWI has extensive research equipment and facilities that include 6 laboratories, the latest NDT equipment (UT phased array systems, ET systems both off the shelf and in-house designed and developed, real time and digital X-ray equipment.) and an extensive inventory of GRP components, derived from previous projects and available as reference and confidence pieces for the ReNEWiT project. In total this makes TWI the ideal research institute to execute this project.

In addition to being a partner in a further 3 CRAFT and CSG projects that involve NDT as a primary research topic, the NDT Group at TWI is currently the main research contractor in the following 3 European CRAFT projects:

Development of a Robotic System for the Inspection of Aircraft Wings and Fuselage (ROBAIR)
2 million Euro CRAFT project concerning developments of NDT systems for the inspection of aircraft. CRAF-1999-70040. This framework 5 project is currently developing a climbing robot to automatically inspect rivets in traditional aircraft materials. This project revealed to the partners that the inspection of structurally significant items, often fabricated from titanium material, was of even more importance in the current market place than the inspection of traditional aircraft materials; this project is proposed based on the market intelligence gathered through the ROBAIR project.

Development of Novel Non Destructive Testing Techniques and Integrated In-line Process Monitoring for Robotic and Flexible Friction Stir Welding Systems (Robot Inspector)
2 million Euro CRAFT project concerning the development of phased array NDT techniques for a new welding process called friction stir welding. CRAF-1999-70641.

Development of New and Novel Inspection Systems for Composite Aircraft Non-Destructive Testing (NANOSCAN)
This 2m Euro project concerns the NDT of extremely high-grade carbon fibre material as used in the Aircraft Industry. CRAF-2001-71910.

TWI was selected for this research by the SMEs because of their proven technical excellence in the development of NDT techniques (past inventions at TWI are being used regularly in the NDT industry). TWI's business strategy, based on industrial collaborative projects involving its 3500 industrial company members or through European projects and its involvement in the various CRAFT projects have made TWI, the first choice for the SMEs in this project.

TWI personnel involved in the project will be Dr. A. Khalid, BSc, MSc, Ph.D., MBA with over 25 refereed publications in the field of NDT inspection and Mr. G Penney who has over 20 years experience in the aerospace field that includes material and aerodynamics engineering; specialist skills are in ultrasonic phased arrays, eddy currents, conventional and digital radiography. A number of project leaders and vastly experienced technicians will also be involved.

Role in the project
WP-F Manager: In addition to the high degree of involvement in the research tasks, TWI will assume the contractual role of Project Co-ordinator in the management work package (WP H). The SMEs believe that the past experience of TWI will aid the smooth running of the project and greatly reduce the heavy administrative burden previously placed on an SME. Technically, TWI will take the lead RTD role in WP-A, B, D & G, as well as the overall lead of WP-G and being active in the remaining WPs by providing high-end guidance and assistance on NDT matters and the validation of techniques in the working environment.