State of the art report about NDE-reactor safety research

The aim of the reactor safety research is to provide the scientific and technological basis to evaluate the safety margins of nuclear power plants and their systems and further develop safety tehcnology in the scope of the liability for provision by the government. Non-destructive Evaluation as a part of quality assurance represents an important section of the activities sponsored by the Feera Minister for Research and Technology (BMFT) to validate the integrity of components. The report summarizes the most important R&D activities of the last ten years performed to improve NDE reliability as an element of basic safety. Inthat capacity NDE provedes the input data for fracture-mechnical calculations: Probability of defect detection; defect parameters like position and size; inormation on microstructure and state of stress in the material under investigation. Therefore the presentation mainly covers ultrasonic and electromagnetic procedures that can provide these data. Moreover examples are given for methods sponsored by BMFT which have been transfered successfully into industrial application or rather have become part of hte routine inspection performed in nuclear industry. Finally a view to future NDE research is given.