November 2009 - Once again the end of Penetrant Testing is announced!

A meeting, held in South West of France beginning of October 2009, led to a significant number of Aerospace Industry Level 3s talking about Penetrant Testing (PT) future. Unfortunately we could not attend this meeting.

Some Level 3s stated that PT was to be replaced soon by other methods: PT using chemicals, huge amounts of water to be treated, etc., would be replaced by non-contact, "clean" methods.

September 2009 - Mercury-vapour bulbs: obviously "very dangerous, as they contain mercury"!

In the 60s, as Student Engineers, we had to determine the melting point of the crystals of organic molecules that we synthesized. The higher the melting point, the purer the synthesized product. Besides the KOFLER hot bench, we used a "mercury bath" on the surface of which we put some crystals. We recorded the mercury temperature when crystals melted. This mercury bath was heated by a Bunsen burner flame. A temperature above 120°C (248°F) was not unusual and, our noses being very closed, we inhaled mercury vapours. We were well-informed and knew the risks, but ... it was the way of life!

We could not proceed this way nowadays!

June 2009 - Yoghurt, Bread, PT

For the attention of the PT young users

Penetrant Testing (PT) dates back to the '80s--but the 1880s!

Thus it is an old NDT method, based on the capillary effect AND on the human eyes + brain as sensor + signal processor unit.

Nowadays everything shall go fast: trains, aircraft, computers, children raising, eating culinary delicious items from ... "fast-food" entities, etc.

But think a while.

May 2009 - One year later!

Dear readers,

One year ago, when we initiated this very specific website, we were anxious about who could be interested, whether our way of thinking would bring us some support or some angry criticism.

Indeed, expectations and dreams differ from a country to another one. So the American dream became: ‘‘Yes, we can’’, while the French dream did not stop being: ‘‘Yes, week-end"

Obviously when looking at the number of people who paid at least one visit to our website, when looking at how many people and who asked to receive our DPCNewsletter every month, when looking at the emails received from all over the world that almost every day tell us how our readers are happy to find previously unheard of information, we are happy to have been so helpful!

This would have not possible without so many favourable returns.