Since the application of electromagnetic induction or eddy current techniques to materials evaluation problems such as detecting surface or near surface cracks and measuring the thickness of thin plate and coatings was begun by many investigators in the late 1930s and early 1940s, commercial instruments based on this NDE method were used extensively during World War II. Eddy current transducers and electronic instrumentation have been greatly improved, and automated systems have been developed for material property determination and flaw detection applications. Nowadays eddy current techniques were applied to automobile, aerospace, metal-forming and nuclear industry etc. Especially fast inspection speed and automatic signal-collecting technique are available to implement the inspection of steam generator tube in nuclear power plant.

In this presentation, ECT techniques applied to Korean nuclear power plants and regulatory position for Korea NPP ECT inspection was discussed. For this, steam generator inspection in KNPPs was summarized and R&D techniques connected to ECT were introduced. Specially, ECT inspection technique for SG tube was explained from bobbin-probe to D-probe according to the development of technique. Also, the current regulatory status of steam generator ECT and ECT issues related to the integrity of steam generator tubes were summarized and future regulatory promise of steam generator ECT was suggested.