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Usability of the written procedures: an eye tracking study Non-destructive evaluation (NDE) is regarded as one of the key elements in ensuring quality of engineering systems and their safe use. A failure of NDE to detect critical defects in safety-relevant components, such as those in the nuclear industry, may lead to catastrophic consequences for the environment and the people. NDE inspection procedure is one of the most important tools in the everyday life of an NDE inspector. Experience and research studies have shown that NDE procedures are not always used as foreseen and may need to be optimized. Both the content and format play an important role in producing reliable procedures. Whereas the content aids in the understanding of the task and in its subsequent correct execution, the format determines the efficiency and frequency of the procedure’s use.
For the purposes of this study, an inspection procedure - designed to be used in the inspection of components used in the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel - was further developed by adopting a user-centered design. This was achieved by following the eye movements during a data evaluation task whilst using the procedure, by interviews and group discussions, accompanied by a review from a human factors’ perspective, the suggestions from relevant literature and by reiterating the entire process once again. This process resulted in identifying shortcomings and in suggesting alterations to the existing procedure. The newly created procedure was empirically tested for its usability using eye tracking. By comparing the old instruction format to the newly developed one, the results showed that appropriately highlighting warnings, exceptions, or reminders, and placing them at a logical position assures that they will be read and identified with ease rather than overlooked. The presentation of the information in a stepwise manner, with one action per step, allows the user to follow more easily the steps that must be carried out to save time and effort.
This study - the first of its kind in the field of non-destructive evaluation - showed that the procedure can be improved by applying human factors principles to the design and by involving the users into the process of procedure development and quality assurance.
Introduction of the speaker – Marija Bertovic
Marija Bertovic has a degree in psychology and a PhD in human factors. Since 2006 she has been working on topics related to human factors in non-destructive testing at the BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, German Society for Non-Destructive Testing and as an independent consultant. The focus of her research has been on identifying and studying human factors’ related risks during NDT inspections and suggesting ways of optimizing the inspections and inspection procedures. She is currently a research staff member at BAM responsible for probabilistic safety and reliability analyses AND human factors analyses. She is the chairwoman of the German Society for Non-Destructive Testing’s (DGZfP) subcommittee on human machine interaction and the winner of the DGZfP Science Award in 2018.
Nondestructive testing of gas turbine blades is essential for their maintenance and service process which is critical to ensure both safety and efficiency of these highly stressed parts. In this presentation, a novel ultrasonic testing method is explored in order to acquire part thickness information in the turbine blade’s airfoil. In established industry processes, the measurements are mainly carried out manually and only at a few specific positions of the inspected parts. The proposed method scans the part using a robot arm guiding an ultrasonic array sensor. For ultrasonic coupling to the complex-shaped surface geometry, the inspected part and sensor are immersed into water. A two-step TFM[1, 2] (Total Focusing Method) approach is used to reconstruct the outer and inner surfaces subsequently from the ultrasonic raw data, which are acquired using the FMC[3] (Full Matrix Capture) measurement principle. For each sensor position, the location and geometry of the outer surface is first identified and then used to create an image of an area inside the material. From that image, the inner surface is reconstructed. Finally, part thickness information is deducted from merging location data of inner and outer surface. The result is a high resolution, high precision mapping of the inspected part’s wall thickness.