German titanium and aluminum investment casting specialist TITAL is the first company in the casting industry to be allowed to utilize digital radiography as a process for quality control.

TITAL obtained certification from the aircraft manufacturer AIRBUS for digital radiography (DDA RT) after having successfully completed qualification testing. This allows TITAL to submit their products to digital quality control next to other methods such as classic film-type x-ray and analog radioscopy. Digital radiography is a form of x-ray imaging, where digital x-ray sensors are used to detect material faults within the casting.

TITAL recognizes the critical importance to always supply products according to the very highest quality standards. Being a company that regularly supplies the highly sensitive aerospace industry with aluminum and titanium parts, it is a pre-requisite to rely on highest quality standards. For the last five years, TITAL has been leading the casting industry in terms of superior quality control and now sets the standard as the first company in its industry to introduce digital radiography.

"We continue to offer innovative and market-oriented solutions for both our production technologies and testing processes ", Berthold Busch, Head of Quality Management at TITAL, underlines.

The new method clearly speeds up the inspection process - the results are repeatable and can be saved in a digital format. This allows TITAL not only to permanently save the testing results, but also to provide their customers the data directly without any additional costs.

Digital radiography is also much more cost-efficient than traditional testing processes, avoiding the cost of expensive x-ray films. These high costs result from relatively high amount of precious metals in the film as well as the particular market concentration among suppliers of x-ray films. Moreover the digital storage of testing results avoids the cost-intensive storage of traditional x-ray films. "We invested a six digit amount in the new technology in order to apply digital radiography. Now we are happy to offer our customers even more safety and quality", Berthold Busch explains. Currently TITAL utilizes all three testing processes in parallel. However, Busch thinks that digital radiography will completely replace the two elder processes at mid-term.