The 3rd South African National NDT Conference presented by SAINT in celebration of 50 years of existence was held at the Accolades Conference Centre, Midrand, Gauteng on the 7th and 8th February 2018.

The conference consisted of 2 parallel paper presentation sessions (30 papers in total) that covered a range of topics such as ‘Robotics working in harmony with NDT’ to ‘Hydrogen Fuel Cells: Optimisation through NDT using Neutron Radiography’. Most of the papers resulted in quite a bit of dialogue thereafter, with further discussions being held outside of the lecture rooms. World renowned plenary speakers such as the Chairman of ICNDT, S.K. Babu and the ASNT Africa Chair had confirmed their attendance but later had to withdraw.

124 delegates attended with 10 being of overseas origin. There were a total of 22 exhibitors that also included 3 from overseas. There was a mixed bag of NDT equipment suppliers, service providers, training entities and associated sister institutes. Live action demonstrations were planned that included the use of drones, scaffolding for fall arrest equipment supplier and rope access service provider use.

Judging from the feedback from the various participants, the conference was a huge success. The ensuing rain was a blessing and made for some creative redesign of the exhibitors booth position or layouts prior to the exhibition.

The ‘Event’ within the event was the Gala Dinner that was held on the Wednesday evening. The SAINT Annual awards were presented with the Best Corporate going to DEKRA Industrial RSA (PTY) Ltd, Best Student to Pieter Oberholster, Best Technician to Richard Makgoale, and Best NDT Instructor to Phillip Skelton. The inaugural SAINT Gold Medal award for Outstanding Contribution to NDT was presented to the meritorious Manfred Johannes by Mr
Bernd Rohloff, the last remaining founder member of SAINT.

Bernd also attended the conference and while chatting to him, it soon became apparent that some of the challenges that he and his fellow Institute committee members faced way back in the 1970’s are still with us today! SAINT thanks all of the Sponsors, Exhibiters, Presenters and Visitors for contributing to the auspiciousness of the occasion. The LOC is looking forward to the next conference where it is hoped that more overseas visitors will find it a prerequisite to attend.


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