How One Technician Found NDT

Jess Rago didn’t set out to work in nondestructive testing (NDT), but a simple conversation led to a lasting career.

Rago was officiating roller derby and a friend mentioned her husband was having a hard time keeping employees. That's when she first heard about NDT.

Her story reflects how many in the field get their start, and why expanding awareness of NDT remains critical to strengthening the workforce.

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ASTM E18-25 Standard Released

The updated ASTM E18-25 standard for Rockwell hardness testing provides clearer guidance on how results are measured, documented, and reported. It supports consistency and comparability across manufacturing, engineering, and quality control environments.

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Processes called “austenitizing,” “annealing,” and “normalizing” are:

Approximate equilibrium heat-treatment processes
Performed only on nonferrous metals
Cold-working processes
Age-hardening processes

Find the answer at the bottom of the email.

Advance Your NDT Career

MT Inspection 101: Concepts for Field Applications

19 May | Live Webinar

Strengthen your Magnetic Particle Testing (MT) skills by revisiting core principles and mastering overlooked details. Gain practical insights into magnetization, detection, and interpretation to improve inspection accuracy and reliability.

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Digital Radiography Level II: CR/DR/CT

On Demand | Online

Step into the future of inspection with digital radiography (DR). Learn to capture, evaluate, and interpret high-quality images while mastering modern systems, industry standards, and real-world inspection best practices.

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Materials and Processes: Preparing for Level III

Advancing to Level III requires more than method-specific expertise, it demands a broader understanding of materials and processes.

While most won’t specialize deeply in every area, this foundational knowledge is critical for selecting methods, developing procedures, and ensuring reliable NDT results.

This excerpt from ASNT Level III Study Guide: Basic, 5th ed. highlights why that knowledge is essential for making informed NDT decisions and developing reliable procedures.

Clearly, not all NDT Level III personnel need to specialize in depth in more than a few facets of industrial materials and manufacturing processes. However, the relationships between NDT technology and materials and processing are pervasive.

NDT personnel charged with the responsibilities of selecting appropriate NDT methods, developing techniques and procedures, and directing the efforts of others in providing meaningful and reliable NDT must have a fundamental and broad knowledge of the origins, nature, behavior, and application of materials and the processes by which they are shaped into products.

The importance of the relationships between NDT and materials and processing technology is characterized in the ASNT Level III Basic examination. Approximately one-third of the Basic examination covers fundamentals of basic materials, fabrication, and product technology. Listed on the following pages are sample questions typical of those that have importance to NDT personnel. Note that most have an underlying basis that ties their content to decision points in NDT.

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