Commendation: Innovation and collaboration - Energy

NDE Solutions is a technology company providing solutions for the detection and monitoring of corrosion anomalies in critical assets such as process piping and pressure vessels. The NDE team continue to develop innovative testing techniques founded on quality and efficiency, working with a wide variety of failure mechanisms in various sectors, including some of Australia's leading businesses in the mining, energy, civil and defence sectors.

Santos is one of Australia's biggest domestic gas suppliers and a leading LNG supplier in the Asia Pacific region, working in partnership with local communities, providing local jobs and business opportunities, safely and sustainably developing natural gas resources and powering industries and households. Santos is committed to grow and develop its cleaner energy and clean fuels, including hydrogen through carbon capture and storage, nature-based offsets, energy efficiency and use of renewables in its operations.

Project:  A corrosion identification and measurement product

Premier's Awards category: Innovation and collaboration - Energy

NDE has developed and successfully trialled the DERCA platform, a non-destructive testing solution designed to detect corrosion anomalies early (before asset failure), avoiding costly unplanned stoppages and environmental leakage, and enabling predictive maintenance and replacement activity to be planned with confidence. The platform has three components : the DERCA (Dual Encoded Rapid Capture Array) scanner; the Atlas software platform; and the Helios Pulser Unit (hardware). NDE are the first Australian company  to develop their own phased array software and hardware.

The advantages DERCA scanning has over existing solutions include its accuracy in mapping the internal structure of piping/pressure vessels (existing solutions require manual markup) and its speed (it requires significantly less labour than competing solutions).

Trials undertaken with Santos have confirmed that DERCA is more accurate, more efficient, and easier to use than other solutions. In addition to this partnership, NDE is collaborating with The University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia and Flinders University on the ARC Linkage Grant 'Beyond the limits of corrosion detection in inaccessible areas' and several other industry partners.

More information about the DERCA platform

Awards history

• 2023 Santos Director's Innovation Awards – the DERCA platform was a finalist for these awards, the highest honour awarded by Santos
• 2023 BDO Fast Movers SA – NDE Solutions placed 4th
• 2023 40 Under 40 – Kimal Singh, Founder and CEO, NDE Solutions was named as one of the 40
• 2022 Impact Awards – NDE Solutions was a finalist and recipient of an Australian Centre for Business Growth scholarship
• 2022 Industry Leaders Fund - Kimal Singh (Founder) was awarded a partially funded scholarship to the owner/president managers program at Harvard Business School. The first module will commence in May 2024 in Boston, MA.