You have several questions in this one post.
Teaching has it's own rewards, however, good pay doesn't very often come hand in hand with teaching.
Working for 15 an hour as a cwi raises an eyebrow, I don't think I would be inclined to accept that rate.
Getting your certifications for NDE is a good thing, but it's not a magic bullet. It still takes a lot of experience
to get good at it.
As a minimum your looking at 5 years down the road before you need to even think about purchasing your own
equipment. Most companies that perform in house UT have their own machines under their QAM control. Now
and then you can make a little farming out your equipment, but it's not going to be until you get your Level III
with experience that it will pay off. I strongly advise against performing UT without being covered with reams of
liability insurance. You would also need a quality manual, and a written practice to CP 189 or SNT TC 1A.
On the other side of the coin. Good (as in actually knowing what they are doing) UT technicians are few and
far between. I've had several bad experiences with "gurus" the past few years. These people can only understand
the concept of the numbers they see at the top of digital screens, while being completely clueless in regards to
the echo dynamics as displayed on the A scan.
If you want to go UT make sure to beg borrow buy or steal some old analog equipment to practice on. Get good
with it, then translate it to the digital, learn to read the A scan first, and the numbers second. (the numbers can
lie to you, with any machine, it's information is only as good as the information it receives and programmed with)
One of the test questions for UT is in regards to strengths and weaknesses. UT is highly dependant on operator
skill even today. Get a reputation for being good with UT and you will never want for work in the near future or even
the next 30 years in my opinion.
Get good with UT, keep your CWI and welding skills, Get PT and MT certifications, followed with NACE certifications, and from there
either branch out into 1 of 3 fields for speciality. Those being 1. (AWS) Structural( 2. (API) Petrochemical 3. (EPRI) Nuclear. I don't mention
military as government work of that nature has a nasty habit of being dependant on your states political pull in Washington.
Until you get to the branching stage work anything you can get your hands on.
ABOVE ALL ELSE DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT
Document all your experience, get a sign of from someone in charge, but make damn sure you get documented.
Your looking at a 10 year plan for what I describe. Hindsight is speaking in my statements, in my humble opinion, the patience and perseverance will pay off big in the end.
Thats my career advice for what it's worth.
Regards,
Gerald
This is all great advice! I understand that all aspects of NDE are going to take time to learn and get some good experience.
I think that I will be looking more into the program at the college. I am trying to find a company that is looking for a CWI. They all seem to want someone with UT, RT, MT experience. CWI postion may be hard to find without the Certs.
The reason I chose UT is because the instructor that taught the CWI course had suggested to me took look into his new NDE program at the college. I could get an AAS in NDE there but I don't know if I want to go for another 2+ years. He did suggest that I just get the certificate in UT. He had heard that SC and NC had a approved 10 year plan to build 5 new nuclear plants. This is why he suggested the UT because of all the pipe welding. Whether to go out on my own or under an employer I would most likely go under an employer.
I do know I love teach and yes the pay is definately not up to par but my wife is a teacher and that would be nice for vacations. The Instructor that I had in college did consulting and a little inspection along with instructing full time. This would be ideal for me to do what I love and go out in the local industry and consult on the side.
I just happen to think about what you guys had thought on career moves. These are just some of the ideas I had.
That would be progress energy. It's not actually 5 plants. My understanding is it will be 3 and not all of them in NC/SC one of them is destined for crystal river site. I believe the others are Harris (I believe there is an optional 4th one here, but not anything that could be said in stone) and Robinson. The number of years are correct. I also understand they will start next year sometime. I think everybody and there brother already has the idea you have as far as progress is concerned. I doubt anyone of the above is going to hire any full time folks, it will all be on a contract basis. Keep this in mind, any time a large project or group of projects opens up like that, it will dry up the pool of experienced help in a hurry. UT is not the only game in town when it comes to nuclear, but you are correct in that there will be reams of baseline scans. I believe the units they plan are Westinghouse brand. BTW, the money has been cut loose for the project by progress, but there is still the final NRC stamp to go through.
Any of the myriad of piping and structural welds, etc will be UT'd. For all pressure retaining welds class 1 or 2 it's almost a guarantee they will all be done by EPRI PDI. The performance demonstrated initiative. There is also the myriad of pressure vessels that will be prefab. Those will be Section VIII/III vessels. On the whole I estimate about 70 full RTC techs for UT, about 200 civil/mechanicals, 200 or so electrical, NFPA 100, just to mention a few. Let's not forget the cold side. The turbine decks alone on these size units will be very large workload.
Progress is not the only one that has such plans either, I understand several utilities have such plans. The strongest outside of Progress that I know of is as follows: TVA restart of the Watts Barr unit(which is all but gutted at this time) Constellation I think has 2 on the books. There are others, but those are leading the pack.
Of course, all it would take is one incident and all that will go away overnight. Do a little research into three mile island. If they get off the ground I think they will finish, but the industry is going to be hostage to no severe industry events if the current boom on the horizon has a change at taking it's first breath.
Just some food for thought.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. I have always hated the analog machines though.
Even if slag is long and straight it can look like lack of sidewall fusion unless you know where it is located in the weld based on your time of flight. It could look the same on either machine. This is where your gates come in. Most digital machines let you set up two gates so you can see if the echo time is early or late from the bevel face. You can't do that on an analog machine.
You are totally on the mark when you say that all the correct parameters need to be entered in for the trig numbers on the digital machines to function.
arcboy,
I would tend to agree with most of what CWI555 has to say. But after 32 years in the inspection business there is a certain amount of attractiveness to be able to take off weekends, holidays, spring break, and 3 months summer vacation. For what it's worth, I don't love my job, but I really like it and have no regrets about choosing this career. Whatever you decide, I hope it's the right choice.
~thirdeye~
Personally, I think there are a few advantages to being under an employer for while anyway...like documentation of work in the welding field, paying for certifications and annual maintenance fees of all those certs, paying you while you go take a two week long UT class to get your 80 hours of instruction that are required for most Level II's(Level II is the working UT inspector level). There is alot of expense that an employer will spend to have qualified inspectors. Training isn't cheap when you consider the salary of the employee, motel room, travel expenses, etc....
To arcboy,
I'd rather to take UT level 2 seminar and NACE Painting Inspector or API Inspector,. Not to become UT Level 2 Operator. Just get the ideas how the sound waves travel and also take MT and PT level 2 seminar in which you will use it if you want to become a third Party Inspector just like me.
In my experience as Certified Saudi Aramco UT,MT,PT level 2 Inspector and AWS/CWI I am already planning to quit my Job as NDT Operator since it is very hard to become NDT especially in Site. I was planning to take NACE Painting Inspector and API Inspector in which more better rather than to become NDT operator.
Thanks for all the insight.
I am not too sure what I am going to do. I am starting to teach in the fall PT unless something comes up before classes start. I am currently looking for a company to hire me and get some more CWI experience and maybe they can send me to some classes and start on those certs.
I am a third party now. The number of people who try to B.S. their way through a UT exam is exceptionally high. Of every UT hand I've meet in the last 15 years, I'd say it's a safe statement that only 1 out of 10 of them actually understand whats going on, and only 3 out of ten can even get so far as reading the auto trig. That sounds bad, but truth hurts often. I've personally thousands of hours hands on with the UT method, and find myself in the position of working third party assuring the UT is carried out properly. That there is even a position of that nature out there is making a statement in and of it'self. This goes with all the NDE methods. It's also the reason central certification across the board is soon to become an eventuality. I was very fortunate to have learned from some of the best, and with all but the dumber hands, every bad NDE hand is a product of bad/cheap training. A person of average intelligence is fully capable doing the job and doing it well.
I agree to CWI555 that only few UT operator are capable to detect the exact location and accurately measure the discontinuity., Most of the guys that i have met cannot pass the SAUDI ARAMCO practical exam even though they are more than 10 years of experience. What i was intend to say, You must have a good experience in Testing of different materials, from Structural to Pressure Equipment and a verygood knowledge in theoretical,practical and standard plus experience. Then probably you will be the 1 of the 10person what CWI555 was saying. So think about it arcboy if you still want to become UT operator or take some training and exam in NACE & API and become Third Party Inspector and work here in middleast and take more than 8,000 US$ per month plus overtime plus allowances and tax free.
regards,
I was asked to go out there last year to work. One of the reasons was that they thought I could pass the hand scan test. I declined not because I thought I would fail it but because I don't want to work in Saudi now matter how much they would have paid me. I heard the test is tough but I like my head firmly placed atop of my neck.
If you are making just that a month in Saudi you are getting screwed. I turned down alot more than that a month. These are 2 month rotations by the way. That's why they pay so much is because they can't get guys to work there.
I agree, I wrote the middle east off a long time back for work. No amount of money does you any good when your dead.
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