Background

Iowa State University (ISU) has long been involved in basic and applied NDE research. The NDE program at ISU dates back to 1980 and has grown to become this country's preeminent research facility in industrial NDE. The Center for Nondestructive Evaluation (CNDE) was established in 1984 as a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. ISU teams with industrial and government sponsors who help guide the research and share the results. There are a number of major research programs in progress at the Center, which have resulted in important contributions to the field of NDE. These programs are successful due in part to strong industry involvement. The industry participation keeps the efforts focused and relevant, and engenders basic and applied research results which are of immediate value to the companies involved.

This history of working to solve industrial problems is the basis from which Center's NDE outreach program was formed. Additionally, Iowa State University is one of the nation's oldest land-grant universities and, therefore, has an obligation to share its knowledge throughout the state. With the nation's foremost NDE research facility located at ISU it made good sense to make its expertise available to assist Iowa manufacturers with their inspection and measurement issues. CNDE industry outreach program was formally established in 1992 with funds from the state of Iowa and was originally named the Iowa Demonstration Laboratory for NDE Applications or IDL. In 2003, the IDL and several other IPRT outreach programs combined to form IPRT Company Assistance.

The program is aimed at assisting Iowa manufacturers with the adaptation and implementation of NDE technology. The program serves as an NDE resource to manufacturers, particularly the small to medium size firms that make up most of Iowa's economic base. Experience has shown that quality issues are a major concern with companies of all sizes, but that the smaller companies struggle to address the problems due to limited resources. In such firms, the technical staff is small and has a broad range of responsibilities. Knowledge of nondestructive evaluation is usually very limited and quality problems often go unresolved. In many cases, companies are completely unaware of NDE. An introduction to the field will ideally help them think about ways quality can be improved and rework and scrap, can be reduced. IPRT Company Assistance NDE Group provides the introduction and works to raise the level of knowledge in these companies to encourage the use of NDE tools and techniques.