UK Research Centre in Nondestructive Evaluation

RCNDE was founded through a major EPSRC-industry initiative in 2003 to undertake adventurous research in a technology area which is key to the safe and sustainable future of a broad cross-section of UK industry including high value manufacturing, aerospace, power generation, defence and oil & gas. The centre has now successfully established the UK as a world leader in multi-disciplinary Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) research and delivered a wide range of new technology, expertise and people into an area that had been fragmented for some decades. The number of full industrial members has grown from 5 to 16, the centre has attracted over £7.5M of industry cash and generated a pipeline of more than 50 exploitable NDE outputs ranging from Technology Readiness Level 2-9. This has already delivered impact through improved technology for today’s advanced manufacturing and plant operation requirements. Moreover, the industrial members have developed a cross-sector vision for the radical new approaches to NDE that will be needed to provide the inspection and qualification capabilities to meet their future business ambitions over the next 20 years and beyond.

The number of full industrial members has grown from 5 to 16, the centre has attracted over £7.5M of industry cash and generated a pipeline of more than 50 exploitable NDE outputs ranging from Technology Readiness Level 2-9.