Beer and Non-Destructive Testing

I recently had a chance to go see the Sweetwater Brewing's 420 fest, in celebration of their company's 420 beer.  Throughout the festival I could see many attractions to patrons and great musical performances by some great bands.  In the distance I saw a Ferris wheel, many buildings, and occasionally a helicopter flying over the crowds and venue for photos.  All of these things are normal areas for NDE & NDT to operate in.
    The Skyview Ferris wheel is comprised of several parts pieced together with welds and bolts.  These parts are often checked using methods such as Ultrasonic inspection (UT) as well as magnetic particle inspection (MT).  The UT can be used as a quick means of checking for bad bolts and the MT for looking for discontinuities in the welds due to service or other mechanical damage.
    Overhead a small helicopter was flying though capturing videos.  It isn't out of the ordinary for me to get a random shipment of parts in to be inspected for a helicopter.  The many parts required to keep the vehicle lifted are generally subjected to many variables that lead to the wear of the system of parts.
    Looking up at the towering view of the Atlanta skyline I saw the buildings.  Most people don't think of office buildings as being a mechanical entity but ask a building engineer and they may say otherwise.  HVAC, internal piping systems, and boilers are a common feature that all benefit from annual inspections.  HVAC sees anything from dye penetrant inspections to eddy current in the heat exchangers.  Pipe layouts are constantly being updated which makes having your isometric drawings updated so important.
     Just in my general observations, I can see the opportunities to help my community through my own expert services, but I have been doing NDT for 9+ years now, toot toot.  To finish I will leave this little tidbit from the show!

  

Initial thoughts and stuff to come

Hello world,

    I am Brandon Viator, business development manager at Aqualified.  I have also dipped my toes in to other avenues of business by starting my own LLC.  Since my work with Aqualified and other projects I have learned various skills and tips that will hopefully be of some help to everyone in the future.  I would like to start off by telling you a bit about myself and my background.
    I began working at an NDT company in 2006 as a co-op and worked every other semester to pay my way through school and gain real world experience.  Over the next 7 years I would work with several different companies with very different business models as a subcontractor.  That job took me through 90% of the US and through most of what we consider modern manufacturing.  It wasn't until I took a position with Aqualified. that I really began to take hold of the various skills and tangent knowledge that I had gained.  I have started my own project in what free time I have and am actively working for Aqualified.
    Now that you know a little about me, let's talk about what information you can expect to find here.  I will be doing a monthly or possibly weekly update on a business or business model and how NDT can benefit that model.  I will go over the pros and cons for each situation and list out a lot of information that may be found useful.  Any case studies for our company that I may have or just some fun examples will also be listed here so follow this blog or even add it to you RSS feeds! Thanks and hope you enjoy!