Non Destructive Testing is widely used to examine materials during the manufacturing or in process. In this context, simulation of NDT plays an increasing role for conceiving methods, demonstrating their performances at a low cost, teaching, training and providing help to operators. As simulation permits to master the parameters involved during an examination, it is a crucial factor to increase inspection reliability .
Since more than one decade the CEA has been contributing to this evolution by developing the CIVA software platform.
Firstly CEA initiated modeling of ultrasonic NDT. The goal was to assist in interpretation of ultrasound signals acquired during inspections of nuclear power plants.
The aim was to enhance the ability of the methods not only to detect defects, but also to characterize them and thus to give specialists the means of evaluating their harmfulness.
A twofold strategy was put forward: the choice of semi-analytical methods rather than fully numerical methods (finite elements, finite differences, etc.), and the development of models integrated into software modules usable by operators who are not simulation specialists. In early nineties, the first version of the CIVA software program was released, bringing together in the same environment, imaging, processing and simulation tools, thus enabling a direct comparison to be made between experimental and theoretical data. Since then, modeling NDT has been constantly gaining in importance, and its applications, as mentioned above, have become increasingly diverse. Over the years, and with successive versions, the results of modeling research works are integrated into CIVA in the aim of fulfilling requirements of users which belong now not only to nuclear industry but also to various industrial sector and especially aircraft industry. The domain of validity of ultrasonic models and the capabilities of the software have been extended. At the same time, Eddy current semi-analytical models have been developed and implemented in the same software environment. Finaly, simulation X ray modules (Sindbad, Moderato) are now integrated in CIVA.
