Qualification of Portable Phased Arrays to ASME Section V

This paper describes the processes required to approve new and advanced inspection techniques for ASME Section V, specifically for Olympus NDT’s OmniScan portable phased array unit. The rationale and processes required for Section V, both Article 4 and the new Article 14 for advanced techniques, is described. The various processes are applied to encoded electronic scanning (i.e. fixed angle raster scanning, or E-scans); the same processes can be applied to encoded Sectorial scans (S-scans) where the beam is swept through a range of angles, and manual S- and E-scans. A variety of techniques, procedures, methodology and reporting documents have been developed for phased arrays. In addition, an update is given on other code developments.