The EFNDT Railway Forum - an opportunity to work in the field of non-destructive testing in Europe

摘要

The inspection of railway components has risen steadily in recent years. In particular, the mechanization and automation of inspection processes play an essential role. For the development and optimization of these rules and processes there are national committees in the European countries. In these committees partners from different areas of NDT are working together to find optimized solutions for of the above tasks. The past shows that an increasing globalization has been observed in the processing of the above processes. The railway companies are striven to establish common standards because of the overlapping conditions. This is a huge range for an intensive cooperation between the railway companies and their partners. Therefore a railway forum was founded within the EFNDT on the initiative of the DB Systemtechnik GmbH and the German Society of NDT. The first meeting took place in Berlin in November 2010. Participants were partners from France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany. At the moment the following countries are involved in the forum: Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, France, Italy and Poland. In the following meetings it was shown, that there are numerous similarities in the field of NDT within railway maintenance but it requires standardization as a basis for a European sector railway maintenance. The similarities and differences can be seen in a document, which was drawn up by the members of the forum. In 2011 two further groups were founded with the aim to work in the field of standardization within the CEN. Members of these groups ate participants of the Railway forum, too. So there is the possibility of communication between both groups. Furthermore, the forum can now focus the work on the technical part of NDT, because the standardization work is better settled in the CEN. The plan is to organize further meetings to present and discuss special topics of NDT within the railway maintenance. Finally please note that the forum does not prescribe completed membership. That means if there are interested NDT specialists, please feel free to work in the forum.