NDT Simulator and Hands-On Practical Training in Richland and the Tri-Cities, Washington

Richland, Kennewick and Pasco sit at the meeting of the Columbia, Snake and Yakima rivers, next to one of the most complex industrial cleanup programmes on the planet. The Hanford Site, north of Richland, holds tens of millions of gallons of radioactive tank waste in 177 underground tanks, and in October 2025 the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant began turning low-activity tank waste into glass, a milestone decades in the making. Nearby, Columbia Generating Station, owned and operated by Energy Northwest, is the only commercial nuclear power plant in the Pacific Northwest, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has a long record of nondestructive evaluation research. Few places anywhere depend more on the integrity of steel tanks, welded piping, pressure boundaries and heat-exchanger tubes. Atlantis built the first-ever online practical NDT simulation portal for practice and hands-on experience, and Practical NDT brings that practice to the Tri-Cities. It is an immersive, game-like 3D environment that runs in a browser or the app. You calibrate, choose the technique, scan the weld, tank wall or tube, record the indications and receive scored feedback immediately. For a workforce where access to real components is restricted, controlled or simply impossible, a simulator is one of the few ways to build repetitions on real inspection decisions.

Why Hands-On NDT Practice Matters Around Hanford and the Tri-Cities

Inspection in the Tri-Cities has a distinctive character: a great deal of it happens on assets that people cannot easily get near. Hanford’s double-shell tanks, for example, have been inspected for years with remotely deployed ultrasonic equipment. Published descriptions of the tank integrity programme describe magnetic crawlers carrying straight-beam transducers to measure wall thinning and pitting and angled shear-wave transducers to look for cracking, deployed through risers into the annulus between the primary and secondary shells. Power-plant work brings its own constraints: outage windows are short, radiation areas limit stay time, and in-service inspection is tightly procedure-driven. Around both sit hundreds of conventional industrial jobs, from waste-treatment and utility systems to food processing plants, fuel terminals and hydroelectric dams, where corrosion, weld quality and tube integrity decide how long equipment stays in service. The common thread is that practice opportunities on real hardware are scarce. Flawed specimens representative of these assets are limited and controlled. Lab time goes to production and qualification work. The rare but critical defects, such as localised pitting in a tank wall, stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel or wall loss in a heat-exchanger tube, are not things a new technician sees every week. Practical NDT gives Tri-Cities technicians a safe place to rehearse those decisions, including the thinking behind thickness mapping, crack detection and tube inspection, before they meet them on a job where access time is precious.

Methods You Can Practise: Tank Walls, Welds, Tubes and Alloys

Practical NDT includes twelve methods. Surface methods are penetrant testing (PT), magnetic particle testing (MT) and visual testing (VT). Volumetric methods are contact ultrasonic testing (UT), phased array ultrasonic testing (PAUT), time-of-flight diffraction (TOFD) and radiographic testing (RT). Electromagnetic methods are eddy current testing (ET) and magnetic flux leakage (MFL). Specialist methods are long-range ultrasonic testing (LRUT), internal rotary inspection system (IRIS) ultrasonic testing, and positive material identification (PMI). In the Tri-Cities, the ultrasonic family is central. UT thickness scenarios teach calibration, grid planning and wall-loss interpretation, the fundamentals behind any tank or piping thickness survey. Angle-beam UT scenarios train crack detection and characterisation in welds and base metal. PAUT and TOFD scenarios build skill in encoded weld inspection and flaw sizing, used on heavy-wall piping and vessels. IRIS scenarios let technicians inspect heat-exchanger and condenser-type tubes for wall loss and pitting, and ET scenarios cover surface cracks and tubing. MFL scenarios on tank floors teach rapid screening for underside corrosion. PT is the key surface method on austenitic stainless steel, which is widely used in nuclear and process systems. PMI builds the alloy-verification habit, and RT scenarios teach image interpretation on welded pipe and plate without any exposure at all. LRUT scenarios introduce guided-wave screening of long pipe runs, for example at supports or road crossings, where access is poor.

The Environments That Fit Tri-Cities Work

Practical NDT has five virtual workplaces, and the Tri-Cities uses almost all of them. The Storage Tank environment is a full-size tank for UT shell thickness surveys and MFL floor screening. The tank in the simulator is an industrial storage tank rather than a waste tank, but the underlying skills of thickness mapping, recognising pitting versus general wall loss, and planning coverage transfer directly to any tank integrity programme. The Oil & Gas Site, with 73 jobs, is a process-plant setting with piping, welds, corrosion, tube bundles, guided-wave screening and alloy verification; its IRIS and ET tube scenarios and its piping thickness work are relevant to power generation, waste treatment and industrial plants alike. The Welding Workshop, with 52 jobs, covers weld coupons and fabrication joints with every major method, which suits the constant welding and fabrication activity supporting site projects. The NDT Lab, with 52 jobs, provides reference-block calibration and flawed-specimen practice, the bench discipline that procedure-driven work demands. The Aircraft Hangar, with 54 jobs, supports technicians in aviation maintenance at the region’s airports. Thirty-three guided lessons give structure to the path through all five environments.

Built for Every Skill Level, from Trainee to Level III

The Tri-Cities has a deep technical workforce, but it is always renewing as experienced people retire and projects ramp up. New trainees come from Columbia Basin College and other technical programmes, the trades, the military and other industries. Practical NDT’s guided lessons give them a clear start: how each method works, how to calibrate, how to scan, and how to interpret, with instant feedback that explains every result. The goal is to make the fundamentals automatic so that supervised time on real hardware can focus on what only real hardware teaches. Working technicians are the second group. Project work and outages come in waves, and a technician may move from thickness surveys to weld inspection to tube inspection between jobs. Practical NDT lets them refresh a method before a campaign starts and drill rare indications, such as cracking in stainless welds or isolated pits in a thickness grid, that must be recognised when they appear. The third group is Level IIIs and inspection leads. In a region where procedures, qualification and records are scrutinised, being able to build scenario sets that mirror upcoming work, assign them to a team, and compare results on a common scale is useful. It shows objectively where a crew is strong and where there are coverage gaps, and it helps leads decide where to spend limited supervised practice time on real specimens and mockups.

How It Complements Formal ASNT Training and the Practical Exam

Practical NDT is a skills-practice and readiness tool. It is not a certification. It does not grant a level. It does not replace the practical examination on real specimens required under ASNT SNT-TC-1A and the employer’s written practice, and it does not replace any performance demonstration, procedure qualification or site-specific qualification that a nuclear operator, code or contract requires. Under SNT-TC-1A, the employer’s written practice sets training and experience requirements and the general, specific and practical examinations, and the practical is performed on real parts with real equipment. What Practical NDT provides is realistic NDT practical exam preparation and ongoing proficiency practice, so that a technician arrives at a practical exam, a demonstration or a live job with well-rehearsed technique and judgement. It complements Atlantis’s classroom and hands-on NDT training programs, which prepare technicians for employer certification under SNT-TC-1A. The scenario library was designed by Anoop Rayavarapu, ASNT NDT Level III and founder of Atlantis NDT, who also leads Atlantis training. The sensible split for Tri-Cities employers is to use the simulator for volume and variety, and reserve controlled specimens, mockups and Level III supervision for the parts of training that need real hardware. Employers developing or reviewing a written practice can talk to our NDT consulting team.

The Tri-Cities Industrial Landscape: Cleanup, Nuclear Power, Research and the Rivers

The Tri-Cities economy has been shaped by Hanford since the 1940s, when the site produced plutonium for the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Today the mission is cleanup, and it is enormous: retrieving and treating tank waste, operating the vitrification plant, which has been reported to have turned more than 100,000 gallons of tank waste into glass by mid-2026, managing groundwater and decommissioning facilities. That work involves tanks, transfer lines, evaporators, melters, ventilation systems and extensive welded piping, much of it in stainless steel, and it requires welding, fabrication and inspection to strict standards. Columbia Generating Station, a boiling water reactor about ten miles north of Richland, is licensed to operate into the 2040s, and it has an extended power uprate planned, while an advanced reactor project has been proposed nearby; operating plants generate in-service inspection work during refuelling outages. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland conducts research across energy and national security, including nondestructive evaluation. The rivers add hydroelectric dams such as McNary and Ice Harbor, with penstocks, gates and structural steel. Agriculture and food processing, with boilers, steam lines, tanks and stainless process piping, form a large part of the regional economy, and the Port of Pasco, rail lines and fuel terminals add further inspection work. Practical NDT maps to this breadth: the Storage Tank and Oil & Gas Site for tank, piping and tube integrity, the Welding Workshop for fabrication, and the NDT Lab for fundamentals.

Radiation Safety and Regulatory Context in Washington

Washington is an NRC Agreement State, so industrial radiography licensing, radioactive materials licensing and X-ray registration are handled by the Washington State Department of Health Office of Radiation Protection, which has a field office in Richland, alongside its Tumwater headquarters and a Spokane office. The office also carries responsibilities connected with Hanford emergency planning and radioactive air emissions. Industrial radiographers working in the Tri-Cities need training, qualification, dosimetry and controlled areas under the state’s radiography rules, and work inside Hanford or a nuclear plant adds site radiological controls on top. Every real exposure costs time and dose. That makes radiographic interpretation and exposure planning ideal for practice on screen. In Practical NDT, trainees work RT scenarios on welds and pipe: exposure geometry, source-to-film distance and unsharpness, image quality indicators, density checks, and interpretation of porosity, inclusions, incomplete penetration, lack of fusion and cracks. The simulator is not radiation safety training or radiological worker training, and it does not qualify anyone as a radiographer or assistant. It does build a solid foundation in image quality and defect recognition, so that supervised work with licensed radiographers adds to what a trainee already understands. In a community where radiation protection is part of daily working life, practising without exposure is simply common sense.

Bringing Practical NDT to Your Tri-Cities Team

Atlantis built the first-ever online practical NDT simulation portal for practice and hands-on experience, and it can support Tri-Cities inspection companies, fabrication shops, contractors, plant maintenance teams and training programmes without special hardware. It begins with a live demo, where we show the Storage Tank, Oil & Gas Site, Welding Workshop and NDT Lab scenarios most relevant to your work. We then agree which methods matter most, for example UT thickness, PAUT and IRIS for integrity work, or PT, RT and PMI for stainless fabrication, set up accounts for trainees, technicians and leads, and give your Level III the tools to build scenario sets and review results. Practical NDT runs in a browser or the app, so it can be used in a training room, an office or at home. Pricing is quote on request; the platform is affordable, accessible and fully customisable. To see it, request a Practical NDT demo for Richland and the Tri-Cities. Leads preparing crews for an outage or a new project can ask about crew readiness benchmarking, and those planning certification courses can pair the simulator with Atlantis NDT training.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Practical NDT replace the practical certification exam?

No. It is a practice and readiness tool. Certification under ASNT SNT-TC-1A and your employer’s written practice still requires training, experience and general, specific and practical examinations, with the practical performed on real specimens. Site, code and performance-demonstration requirements also still apply. Practical NDT helps technicians prepare; it does not certify them.

What experience level is it for?

All levels. New trainees follow 33 guided lessons. Working technicians refresh methods and drill rare defects between projects and outages. Level IIIs and inspection leads build scenario sets, benchmark crews and identify coverage gaps.

Does it simulate Hanford tanks or equipment specifically?

No. The simulator’s tank is an industrial storage tank, and its plant scenarios are set in a process plant. The skills practised, such as UT thickness mapping, pitting recognition, crack detection, tube inspection and alloy verification, transfer to many Tri-Cities assets, but site-specific procedures and qualifications are always provided by the employer.

Is there a heat-exchanger tube inspection simulator?

Yes. The Oil & Gas Site includes IRIS ultrasonic tube inspection and eddy current scenarios for wall loss, pitting and cracking in tubes, relevant to power, process and food-processing plants.

How do we arrange a demo in the Tri-Cities?

Use the Tri-Cities demo request form or email info@atlantisndt.com, and we will follow up with a walkthrough and a quote on request.

Explore more: Practical NDT overview, NDT training and certification, consulting services, Atlantis ERP, Digital Twins, request a demo.