The aim of this paper is to provide a grounding in the fundamentals of both established and emerging inspection techniques and enable the student to propose reasonable assessment methods for identification and monitoring of critical defects across a variety of materials, geometries and applications.

The paper provides the opportunity for students to become familiar with some of the more commonly used maintenance approaches, monitoring and sensing technologies and inspection and assessment techniques used as methods of non-destructive evaluation and continuous monitoring, including dye pen, ultrasound, and acoustic emission. More advanced or emerging technologies, including thermal techniques, will also be reviewed. While not every student will go on to directly use the techniques in their future employment, students should consider how through life inspection can occur during the design stage of components and systems. A key outcome is that students acknowledge that one inspection technique often can not identify all defects of interest, so they must critically analyse detection limitations and propose and communicate appropriate solutions. Concepts of how inspection and maintenance are considered during design, and how defects may be considered through the use of damage tolerant design will be covered.

The learning outcomes for this paper are linked to Washington Accord graduate attributes WA1-WA11. Explanation of the graduate attributes can be found at: https://www.ieagreements.org/assets/Uploads/Documents/IEA-Graduate-Attributes-and-Professional-Competencies-2021.1-Sept-2021.pdf

The paper is structured using a combination of lectures to develop the theoretical understanding, laboratory sessions to develop understanding of the practical implementation limitations of some techniques and finally workshops where inspection problems will be posed that develop in complexity.

Workshops and labs share a time slots and will often be both, hence a workshop or lab will run every week, starting from week 2. Assessment will be undertaken in these sessions and in the student's study time. Students should manage their workload and ensure effort is reflective of assessment weighting. Individual assessment weightings are provided in moodle.