- 1854 Hartford,?Connecticut?– A boiler at the Fales and Gray Car works explodes,[9][10]?killing 21 people and seriously injuring 50. Within a decade, the State of Connecticut passes a law requiring annual inspection (in this case visual) of boilers.
- 1880–1920 – The "Oil and Whiting" method of crack detection[11]?is used in the railroad industry to find cracks in heavy steel parts. (A part is soaked in thinned oil, then painted with a white coating that dries to a powder. Oil seeping out from cracks turns the white powder brown, allowing the cracks to be detected.) This was the precursor to modern liquid penetrant tests.
- 1895 –?Wilhelm Conrad R?ntgen?discovers what are now known as X-rays. In his first paper he discusses the possibility of flaw detection.
- 1920 – Dr. H. H. Lester begins development of industrial radiography for metals.
- 1924 – Lester uses radiography to examine castings to be installed in a Boston Edison Company steam pressure power plant.
- 1926 – The first electromagnetic eddy current instrument is available to measure material thicknesses.
- 1927-1928 – Magnetic induction system to detect flaws in railroad track developed by Dr. Elmer Sperry and H.C. Drake.
- 1929 – Magnetic particle methods and equipment pioneered (A.V. DeForest and F.B. Doane.)
- 1930s – Robert F. Mehl demonstrates radiographic imaging using gamma radiation from Radium, which can examine thicker components than the low-energy?X-ray machines?available at the time.
- 1935–1940 – Liquid penetrant tests developed (Betz, Doane, and DeForest)
- 1935–1940s –?Eddy current?instruments developed (H.C. Knerr, C. Farrow, Theo Zuschlag, and Fr. F. Foerster).
- 1940–1944 –?Ultrasonic test?method developed in USA by Dr.?Floyd Firestone, who applies for a U.S. invention patent for same on May 27, 1940 and is issued the U.S. patent as grant no. 2,280,226 on April 21, 1942. Extracts from the first two paragraphs of this seminal patent for a nondestructive testing method succinctly describe the basics of ultrasonic testing. "My invention pertains to a device for detecting the presence of inhomogeneities of density or elasticity in materials. For instance if a casting has a hole or a crack within it, my device allows the presence of the flaw to be detected and its position located, even though the flaw lies entirely within the casting and no portion of it extends out to the surface." Additionally, "The general principle of my device consists of sending high frequency vibrations into the part to be inspected, and the determination of the time intervals of arrival of the direct and reflected vibrations at one or more stations on the surface of the part." Medical?echocardiography?is an offshoot of this technology.[12]
- 1946 – First neutron radiographs produced by Peters.
- 1950 – The?Schmidt Hammer?(also known as "Swiss Hammer") is invented. The instrument uses the world's first patented non-destructive testing method for concrete.
- 1950 – J. Kaiser introduces acoustic emission as an NDT method.
(Basic source for above: Hellier, 2001) Note the number of advancements made during the WWII era, a time when industrial quality control was growing in importance.
- 1955 –?ICNDT?founded. World organizing body for Nondestructive Testing.
- 1955 – First NDT World Conference takes place in Brussels, organized by ICNDT. NDT World Conference takes place every four years.
- 1963 – Frederick G. Weighart's[13]?and?James F. McNulty (U.S. radio engineer)'s[14]?co-invention of?Digital radiography?is an offshoot of the pairs development of nondestructive test equipment at Automation Industries, Inc., then, in El Segundo, California. See James F. McNulty also at article?Ultrasonic testing.
- 1996 – Rolf Diederichs founded the first Open Access NDT Journal in the Internet. Today the Open Access NDT Database NDT.net
- 1998 – The European Federation for Non-Destructive Testing (EFNDT) was founded in May 1998 in Copenhagen at the 7th European Conference for Non-Destructive Testing (ECNDT). 27 national European NDT societies joined the powerful organization.
- 2008 – NDT in Aerospace Conference was established DGZfP and Fraunhofer IIS hosted the first international congress in Bavaria, Germany.
- 2008 – Academia NDT International has been officially founded and has its base office in Brescia (Italy) www.academia-ndt.org
- 2012 –?ISO 9712:2012 ISO Qualification and Certification of NDT Personnel
- 2020 –?Indian Society for Non-destructive Testing (ISNT)?Accreditation Certification from NABCB for Qualification and Certification of NDT Personnel as per ISO 9712:2012
