A regular meeting of USNDT Board was held on October 2, 2005 during the 13^th Annual Conference and Exhibition “Modern NDT and TD methods and methods”.

• Approval of the membership of Organizing Committee of the 5^th National Conference on “NDT and Technical Diagnostics”.

On May 18 to 21, 2004 the 7^th Conference-Exhibition “NDT-2004” was held at the E.O.Paton Electric Welding Institute of NASU in Kiev. This event was organized by “OKO” Association together with the Ukrainian Society for Non-Destructive Testing and Technical Diagnostics (USNDT), E.O.Paton Electric Welding Institute of NASU, Department of Railway Transportation, and National Power Generation Company “Energoatom”. Well-known NDT scientists and specialists from Ukraine, Russia, Byelarus, Khroatia, France, Spain, Great Britain – 400 participants altogether from more than 200 organizations and enterprises took part in the Conference. Exhibition of instruments, means and materials for NDT of products and constructions was held simultaneously with the Conference, with about 25 exponents from Ukraine, Russia and other countries participating in the Exhibition.

2^nd International Industrial Forum “Fuel-Energy Industry of Ukraine – 2004: the present and the future” was held from September 7 to 10, 2004 at the International Exhibition Center (IEC) in Kiev. A specialized seminar “Non-Destructive Testing and Technical Diagnostics in oil and gas industry and in power generation” organized by USNDT together with IEC was conducted as part of the Forum. About 40 specialists took part in the seminar.

From September 20 to 24, 2004 12^th International Conference and Exhibition “Modern Methods and Means of NDT and Technical Diagnostics” was held in Yalta. Conference organizers were Ukrainian Information Centre “Science. Techniques. Technology” (Kiev) and Company “Machine Building” (Dnipropetrovsk) with the support of NDT Societies of Ukraine, Russia and Byelorus, as well as Dniepropetrovsk National University. 204 specialists from Ukraine (156), Russia (34), Byelorus (8), Moldova (4), Lithuania (2) participated in the Conference, representing 47 industrial enterprises, 11 higher educational establishments, research institutes and design bureaus, 42 science-production companies, 16 expert and diagnostic centers, as well as public organizations. 13 plenary, 40 section and 43 poster presentations were made in the Conference, their authors presenting the results of their investigations and developments in a wide range of NDT procedures, methods of diagnostics and prediction of the residual life of structures; evaluation of physico-mechanical characteristics of materials and some other fields related to NDT and TD.

3^rd International Industry Forum “Production and Protection – 2004” was held in Kiev from November 30 till December 2, 2004 at the International Exhibition Center. USNDT as one of the co-organizers of the subject-oriented Exhibition “Samples, Standards, Reference blocks, Instruments” had its bench in the Exhibition, presenting “Technical Diagnostics and Non-Destructive Testing”, “NDT-Inform” journals, and other materials on the Society activities and events organized by the Society. On November 30 two specialized scientific-practical seminars were held in IEC conference hall, which were devoted to problems of non-destructive testing and technical diagnostics of industrial plants to prevent their failure, issues of standardization, certification and metrological support of NDT and TD means.

On November 23-25, 2004 the 5th Seminar-Exhibition “Modern Technologies and Instruments of NDT and Technical Diagnostics” was held in Kharkiv. The Seminar was organized by the Eastern Regional Division of USNDT together with Company “Ukregernochermet”. Twenty presentations were made during two plenary sessions held at the Seminar-Exhibition.

From February 14 to 19, 2005 NDT specialists met in Slavsk, Lviv District for the 10^th International Scientific-Technical Conference “Leotest-2005”. Physical methods and means of testing environments, materials and products”, devoted to issues of electromagnetic and acoustic testing. The organizers of this annual Conference were USNDT, G.V.Karpenko Physico-Mechanical Institute of NASU (Lviv), Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas, Science-Production Company “Zond” (Ivano-Frankivsk), and Company “Ultracon-Service” (Kiev). The Conference Organizing Bureau was “Leotest-Medium Center”. More than 60 specialists from Ukraine, Russia, Byelorus, Moldova, Poland and Germany participated in the Conference.

In the period from August 29 to September 5, 2004 the 16^th World Conference on NDT was held in Montreal, Canada. The Conference was co-organized by CINDE and ICNDT.

17 reports were presented in the Conference from Ukraine, including 3 section papers, and 14 poster papers. The highest activity as regards paper preparation was shown by specialists of the E.O.Paton Electric Welding Institute of NASU – 5 papers, Dniepropetrovsk National University – 3 papers, G.V.Karpenko Physico-Mechanical Institute of NASU – 2 papers.

Ukrainian Society for NDT arranged for leading Ukrainian NDT specialists to participate in the Conference. This time the delegation consisted of 11 specialists. Five more persons joined our delegation directly in Canada.

Conference organizers provided to USNDT as a full member of ICNDT, an information booth, the exhibits in which were presented by the E.O.Paton Electric Welding Institute of NASU, V.Malyshev Plant (Kharkiv), Company “Ultracon-Service” (Kiev).

Members of USNDT delegation participated in the plenary and section sessions, visited the booths of leading companies developing NST means.

From May 1 to 8, 2004, the Conference “Modern Aspects of Organizing NDT of Quality in a Production Enterprise” was held in the city of Cide, Turkey. Conference organizers were USNDT, Company “Diagnostic Devices”, Company “Ultracon”, Ukrainian Information Centre “Science. Techniques. Technology”. The Conference goal was to find the most effective methods of development of NDT services in a production enterprise under the modern conditions. More than 60 experts from Ukraine and Russia took part in the Conference. About 60 papers were presented in the scientific program of the Conference.

USNDT representatives participated in the 4^th International Exhibition of NDT Instruments and Equipment “Defectoscopia-2004” (14-16.09.2004) in St.-Petersburg.

In 2004 according to the State Standardization Program USNDT started the work on harmonizing nine European NDT standards in addition to 15 standards earlier harmonized and already valid in Ukraine, namely: EN 462-3, EN 583-3, ENV 583-6, EN ISO 3452-2, EN ISO 3452-3, EN 444, EN 14096-1, EN 14096-2, EN 25580.

Development of Standard “Ultrasonic testing of welded joints of boilers, pipelines and vessel” is being completed due to co-operation of USNDT, E.O.Paton Electric Welding Institute of NASU, Energy Consulting Group, Company "Donorgres".

USNDT Certification Center was working on certification of NDT personnel in keeping with DSTU EN 473-2001, ISO 9712, GOST 30489, STTU USNDT 01-2000 on the following methods: ultrasonic, radiographic, magnetic-particle, penetrant, visual.

Company “Marine Bureau of the Register” (Odessa) goes through the procedure of validation for training and examination of UT personnel in the “Shipbuilding Products” Sector of USNDT Certification System.

During the 16^th World NDT Conference in Montreal the leaders of USNDT delegation held negotiations with the representatives of the leading world companies working in the field of NDT and TD, in particular "Plant Integrity Ltd.", Great Britain, "GE Inspection Technologies (AGFA)", Belgium; "Panametrics-NDT", Moscow, "Innovative NDT Inspection Solutions", Belgium.

One of the important results of the negotiations with foreign company representatives, participating in the Exhibition in Canada were agreements on conducting in Ukraine four scientific-technical seminars on application of modern NDT technologies in the near future with demonstration of the above companies products, covering the following issues:

In a meeting of the Society Chairman with Mr. Peter Mudge, Director of "Plant Integrity Ltd.", an agreement was reached on co-operation in the field of development of equipment and technology of long-wave testing of the quality of pipes and other metal structures. An International Project on plant monitoring, using long-range ultrasound has now been developed and submitted for consideration to the Eurounion bodies. USNDT is one of the eight European NDT Societies who are the founders of this European project.

In keeping with bilateral co-operation agreements, USNDT Secretariat is regularly sending the Society publications, namely: "NDT-Inform" Bulletin, "Technical Diagnostics and NDT" Journal to most of the European NDT Societies, as well as NDT Societies of the USA, Canada and some other countries (starting from 2004 part of information materials in the Bulletin have been translated into English). In its turn the Secretariat receives publications of ICNDT (“ICNDT Journal”), British NDT Institute (“INSIGHT”), ASNT (“Materials Evaluations”), as well as NDT Societies of Germany, France, Bulgaria, Japan and some others.

USNDT publication – “NDT-Inform” Bulletin is prepared and published on a quarterly basis. The Bulletin is also mailed to the Society members and, in addition, is distributed free-of-charge in the conferences, seminars, and exhibitions, in NDT training and examination centers.