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intelligent Weld inspection

Project description

AI-supported ultrasonic weld inspection will overcome the obstacle of thick weld joints

Permanently joining metals – welding – is an essential part of critical asset manufacturing from buildings and bridges to nuclear reactors. Ensuring the integrity of these welds is paramount to the safety of the structures, people and the environment. Ultrasonic inspection is fast, well-described and non-destructive. However, it faces challenges with thick weld joints. Building on the ADVISE project, the EU-funded iWeld project will deliver advanced inspection tools which address this issue. The team will create and deploy a comprehensive weld library to train an AI model that predicts a weld’s internal material structure. This will be used to further algorithms and improve inspection workflows. iWeld will make their novel tools openly accessible to support their development.

Objective

Periodic inspection of the integrity of welds is essential for maintaining safe and efficient operation of critical assets. Methods based on ultrasound have numerous advantages – they are fast, accessible and non-disruptive – but they meet serious obstacles when used on thick welds with a complex microstructure. The H2020 ADVISE project developed and demonstrated techniques to address these challenges in the nuclear energy context. For most of these, the knowledge of the internal material structure of the weld is essential. Building up foundations laid by ADVISE, iWeld aims to progress towards implementing the imaging and characterisation methods in-situ and broaden their application scope beyond the nuclear energy sector. The project will combine insights from a wide spectrum of industries to construct a comprehensive weld library which will be used to train an AI model predicting the internal material structure of the weld. These predictions will be used in further refined inversion and imaging algorithms to deliver a comprehensive inspection planning workflow. The ambition of iWeld is to transform the way to perform ultrasonic inspection on complex welds across several branches of industry and to deliver open tools to support their development.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

EURATOM-IA - EURATOM Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-EURATOM-2021-NRT-01

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Coordinator

ELECTRICITE DE FRANCE
Net EU contribution
€ 273 346,00
Address
AVENUE DE WAGRAM 22
75008 Paris
France
Region
Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost
€ 396 993,75

Participants (6)

Partners (2)