NDT Simulator & Practical NDT Training in Spain

Atlantis built the first-ever online practical NDT simulation portal for practice and hands-on experience, and Spain's mix of refineries, LNG terminals, wind manufacturing, naval yards, aerospace plants and nuclear stations gives it plenty to practise for. The Atlantis Practical NDT simulator is an immersive, 3D, game-like platform that runs in a browser or app. A technician enters a virtual NDT lab, welding workshop, aircraft hangar, oil and gas site or full-size storage tank, takes a job, sets up the technique, scans or interprets, and is scored the moment the job is closed. Spanish inspection work is spread around the coast and a few inland hubs: refining and petrochemicals at Tarragona, Cartagena, Huelva, Algeciras, Castellón, Bilbao, A Coruña and Puertollano; LNG terminals from Barcelona to Huelva and from Bilbao to Gijón; wind tower and offshore foundation fabrication in the north; naval and commercial shipbuilding at Ferrol, Cartagena, the Bay of Cádiz and Vigo; aerospace at Getafe, Illescas, Seville, Cádiz and the Basque Country; and nuclear power in Catalonia, Valencia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha. Technicians rarely use every method every month, and the right flawed specimens are hard to come by. The simulator gives trainees, working technicians and Level IIIs a way to stay sharp without booking lab time or using up specimens.

This is the Spain hub for Practical NDT. It covers where Spanish NDT work happens by region, how the simulator's environments and methods fit that work, the regulators and certification schemes Spanish technicians deal with, and an honest account of what a simulator can and cannot do for certification. To see it with your own jobs in mind, request a Practical NDT demo for Spain.

Spain's NDT workforce and where the work is

Short answer: Spanish NDT work is driven by refining and petrochemicals, gas and LNG infrastructure, wind energy manufacturing, shipbuilding, aerospace, nuclear power and general metal fabrication. Most of it sits on the coasts, with Madrid and a few inland industrial centres as the exceptions, so each region has a recognisably different mix of methods.

Catalonia. The Tarragona area holds the largest chemical and petrochemical complex in southern Europe, with a refinery, steam crackers and dozens of chemical plants spread across its north and south industrial estates and served by the port of Tarragona. In the same province are the Ascó and Vandellós II nuclear plants. Barcelona adds one of Spain's busiest ports, a large LNG regasification terminal, automotive manufacturing at Martorell and a broad engineering and fabrication base. Turnaround inspection, exchanger and tube work, alloy verification, tank surveys and nuclear outage work make Catalonia one of the most varied NDT markets in the country.

The Basque Country and Cantabria. Bilbao has long been an industrial capital: a refinery at Muskiz, an LNG terminal at the port, steel and forging works, heavy machinery, aero-engine design and manufacturing at Zamudio and a wind supply chain that includes tower and offshore foundation fabrication in the port area. Forgings, castings and thick welded structures mean plenty of UT, PAUT, TOFD, MT and PT, and aero-engine work adds eddy current and penetrant to aerospace procedures.

Asturias and Galicia. Asturias has integrated steelmaking at Avilés and Gijón, an LNG terminal at El Musel in Gijón, and fabrication of wind towers and offshore wind components. In Galicia, Ferrol and Fene are home to naval shipbuilding and offshore wind jacket fabrication, Vigo has a large cluster of private shipyards and automotive manufacturing, A Coruña has a refinery and Mugardos an LNG terminal. Weld inspection on hulls, jackets, monopiles and towers is the everyday work here.

The Valencian Community and Murcia. Castellón has a coastal refinery and a chemical cluster, Sagunto an LNG terminal, Almussafes an automotive plant and Cofrentes a nuclear power station. Further south, the Escombreras valley at Cartagena combines one of Spain's largest refineries, an LNG terminal, power plants and chemical industry, while the Cartagena naval yard builds submarines and naval vessels. Refinery IRIS, PMI and tank work sit next to naval PAUT and TOFD.

Andalusia. Huelva has a refinery and one of Spain's main chemical poles, together with an LNG terminal. The Bay of Algeciras, home to one of Europe's busiest container ports, hosts a large refinery and petrochemical complex at San Roque. The Bay of Cádiz has naval and commercial shipyards at Puerto Real, San Fernando and Cádiz, and aerostructures plants. Seville is an aerospace centre with military transport aircraft final assembly and a strong supplier base, and southern Spain's large solar thermal plants add pressure piping, heat exchangers and molten-salt tanks.

Madrid and the interior. Madrid is the headquarters city for Spanish engineering, procurement and construction firms, utilities and inspection companies, and Getafe, Illescas and Albacete host aircraft, composite and helicopter plants. Puertollano in Castilla-La Mancha has an inland refinery and petrochemical complex, Trillo a nuclear plant, and Almaraz in Extremadura a two-unit nuclear station. Aragon and Navarre add automotive, wind turbine manufacturing and general engineering.

Practical NDT by region in Spain

Atlantis does not yet have Practical NDT pages for individual Spanish cities, so this hub covers the main centres directly. The table maps each to the environments and methods that match its everyday jobs.

Tarragona. Petrochemical turnarounds in Tarragona call for large crews and fast mobilisation. IRIS on exchanger bundles, PMI on alloy circuits, TOFD and PAUT on vessel and nozzle welds, corrosion mapping on piping and MFL floor screening on tanks are the core skills, all present in the Oil & Gas Site and Storage Tank environments. Nuclear outages at Ascó and Vandellós II add UT, eddy current and visual work under strict procedures. See also the Tarragona ERP page and the Tarragona digital twin page.

Barcelona. Port terminals, LNG storage, automotive suppliers and fabrication shops make Barcelona a mixed market. Tank surveys, weld inspection on fabricated equipment, eddy current on automotive parts and fundamentals training for new hires all fit. Atlantis also has an ASNT NDT training page for Barcelona for employers who work to US codes.

Bilbao and the Basque Country. Forging and casting inspection relies on UT and MT, wind and offshore foundation fabrication on PAUT and TOFD of thick welds, and aero-engine manufacturing on eddy current and penetrant inspection. The NDT Lab, Welding Workshop and Aircraft Hangar cover all three.

Asturias and Galicia. Shipyard and offshore wind fabrication generate long runs of thick welds, where PAUT and TOFD have become routine alongside UT, MT and RT. The Welding Workshop is the natural home, while LNG terminals at Gijón and Mugardos and the A Coruña refinery map to Storage Tank and Oil & Gas Site jobs.

Castellón, Sagunto and Valencia. Refinery and chemical plant maintenance, LNG tank work and nuclear outages at Cofrentes mean exchanger, tube and tank skills are in demand.

Cartagena. The Escombreras refinery and LNG terminal and the naval yard sit a few kilometres apart, so one inspection company can need both IRIS and PMI for a turnaround and PAUT and TOFD for naval welds in the same quarter.

Huelva and Algeciras. Two of Spain's largest refining and chemical complexes, plus LNG and busy port terminals, keep turnaround and tank crews busy. LRUT guided-wave screening is useful on long pipe racks and jetty lines.

Seville and the Bay of Cádiz. Aerospace assembly and aerostructure plants lean on eddy current, penetrant and UT of composites and metallic parts, mapped to the Aircraft Hangar. Shipyards in the bay add weld inspection, and solar thermal plants add piping and tank work.

Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha. Aircraft, composites and helicopter plants make the Aircraft Hangar the key environment, while the Puertollano refinery and nuclear outages at Trillo add process and power-plant methods.

Environments and methods that match Spanish work

Direct answer: the Atlantis Practical NDT simulator has five environments, twelve methods and 33 guided lessons. In Spain the Oil & Gas Site and Storage Tank serve refining, petrochemicals and LNG; the Welding Workshop serves shipbuilding, wind and fabrication; the Aircraft Hangar serves aerospace; and the NDT Lab builds fundamentals for everyone.

Oil & Gas Site (73 jobs). Weld, corrosion, tube and screening practice in a process plant: contact UT and PAUT corrosion mapping, TOFD on pressure welds, IRIS internal rotary UT on exchanger and boiler tubes, LRUT guided-wave screening on long pipe runs and PMI alloy verification. It mirrors turnaround work at Tarragona, Cartagena, Huelva, Algeciras, Castellón, Bilbao, A Coruña and Puertollano.

Storage Tank. UT shell thickness surveys and MFL floor screening on a full-size tank. Refinery tank farms, port oil terminals and the tank inventories around Spain's LNG terminals generate this work.

Welding Workshop (52 jobs). Weld coupons and fabrication joints for RT film and digital image interpretation, UT and PAUT detection and sizing, TOFD, MT and VT against acceptance criteria. It fits shipyards, wind tower and offshore foundation fabricators, pressure equipment shops and structural steel.

Aircraft Hangar (54 jobs). Airframe and component inspection with eddy current, penetrant and UT, matching Spain's aircraft assembly, composites, helicopter and aero-engine sectors and airline maintenance at Madrid, Barcelona and other hubs.

NDT Lab (52 jobs). Bench specimens and reference blocks for calibration, probe handling, sensitivity, scan coverage and indication recognition. It suits new trainees, forging and casting inspectors and anyone preparing for a practical examination.

Across the twelve methods, surface methods (PT, MT, VT) cover finished parts and structural welds; volumetric methods (UT contact, PAUT, TOFD, RT) carry weld and corrosion assessment; electromagnetic methods (ET, MFL) serve aerospace, tubes and tank floors; and the specialist techniques (LRUT, IRIS, PMI) reflect refinery and chemical plant integrity programmes.

Regulators and requirements Spanish technicians meet

Short answer: Spanish NDT personnel are normally certified to UNE-EN ISO 9712, mainly through CERTIAEND; industrial radiography staff need personal licences from the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN); and pressure equipment in service is governed by the Pressure Equipment Regulation approved by Royal Decree 809/2021. Practical NDT is practice for any of these frameworks and replaces none of them.

Personnel certification. Spain applies UNE-EN ISO 9712. CERTIAEND, the certification body operated by the Spanish NDT association AEND and accredited by ENAC, certifies NDT personnel to that standard. Employers working on US-designed plants, for US-owned operators or on ASME and API projects sometimes keep ASNT SNT-TC-1A based written practices as well. That is market context only. Atlantis training aligns with ASNT SNT-TC-1A only, and Atlantis does not train toward, certify or administer UNE-EN ISO 9712 or CERTIAEND certification. Practical NDT is practice for whichever scheme you work under.

Radiation safety. The Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear (CSN) is Spain's regulator for nuclear safety and radiation protection. Industrial radiography is carried out in authorised radioactive installations, and people who operate or supervise the equipment need personal, non-transferable operator or supervisor licences issued by the CSN for the industrial radiography field of application, which must be renewed periodically. Practical NDT's RT jobs involve no radiation source and do not count toward a CSN licence.

Pressure equipment. New pressure equipment is placed on the market under the Pressure Equipment Directive 2014/68/EU as transposed into Spanish law. Equipment in use is covered by the Reglamento de Equipos a Presión and its complementary technical instructions, approved by Royal Decree 809/2021, with periodic inspections carried out by authorised control bodies and oversight by the industry departments of the autonomous communities. Confirm the current requirements with your autonomous community or control body before relying on any detail.

Nuclear and codes in daily use. Nuclear in-service inspection is overseen by the CSN, and Spanish plants work to their own inspection programmes, which reference ASME Section XI for several plant designs. Fabrication commonly references the EN ISO weld testing and acceptance standards, EN 13445 and EN 13480, and ASME and API codes for export and refinery work; shipyards and offshore wind fabricators work to classification society and project specifications. Mentioned as context only.

For trainees, working technicians and Level IIIs in Spain

Practical NDT adapts to three kinds of user, each with a distinct challenge in Spain.

New trainees. Spanish trainees often come from vocational training (formación profesional) in welding, mechanics or quality, or move across from production roles. The hardest thing early on is enough hands-on time. Guided fundamentals in the NDT Lab let a trainee repeat calibration, angle-beam setup, scan coverage and indication interpretation with instant feedback, so a real block is never the first attempt. It is good NDT practical exam preparation, with the clear understanding that the real exam is taken on real specimens.

Working technicians. Spanish work comes in waves: spring and autumn turnarounds on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, nuclear refuelling outages, wind and shipyard production peaks. A technician who spent months on wind tower UT may be called to run IRIS on an exchanger bundle in Huelva or TOFD on a reactor nozzle in Tarragona. Rare-defect refreshers between assignments, on lack of fusion, laminations, hydrogen damage, stress corrosion cracking and tube pitting, help them arrive ready rather than relearn on the client's equipment.

Level IIIs and team leads. Level IIIs can build and assign scenario sets, benchmark crews objectively and find coverage gaps before a campaign. When a turnaround brings in contract technicians from across Spain and Portugal, a consistent scenario set gives a like-for-like view of readiness and helps confirm that new procedures are understood before they reach the field.

Practice vs certification

Practical NDT is a practice and readiness tool. It is not a certification. It does not grant a level under UNE-EN ISO 9712, ASNT SNT-TC-1A or any employer's written practice, it does not replace the practical examination on real specimens those schemes require, and it does not count toward a CSN radiography licence. What it adds is realistic repetition: more chances to set up, scan, interpret and get feedback than a lab timetable or specimen store allows. It complements formal NDT training and on-the-job experience; the formal practical exam remains the step that counts.

Why virtual NDT training suits Spanish employers

Direct answer: Spain's NDT work is spread around a long Mediterranean and Atlantic coastline plus a few inland hubs, it arrives in turnaround and outage waves, and many inspection firms are small. A browser-based ultrasonic testing simulator and phased array simulator let them give staff structured practice without tying up a lab, a supervisor and a set of flawed specimens.

A crew based in Tarragona may finish a turnaround and move to Huelva, then to a wind fabrication yard in Asturias. Organising consistent practice between those moves is difficult, and smaller firms rarely own specimens with the full range of defect types. With the simulator, technicians practise at home, in a hotel room on a turnaround or in the shop office, subject to company IT rules. Supervisors see scores, not self-assessments. A Level III can send one scenario set to everyone on a campaign. None of this replaces real equipment time, but it makes real time count for more. The simulator's jobs and feedback are presented in English; ask during the demo if Spanish-language support matters for your team.

Who in Spain typically looks at Practical NDT

Groups that tend to find a simulator useful in Spain include inspection service companies that staff refinery, chemical and nuclear outages; wind tower and offshore foundation fabricators; shipyards and their subcontractors; aerospace manufacturers and maintenance organisations; pressure equipment and forging manufacturers; vocational training centres that want more practice time for students; and individual technicians preparing for an exam or returning to a method. These are industry descriptions, not a customer list; Atlantis does not name customers on this page.

For Spanish employers who work to ASME and API codes or for US-owned plants and OEMs, Atlantis also offers ASNT SNT-TC-1A aligned NDT training online, live-virtual or onsite at the client's facility, and Level III consulting on procedures, techniques and written practices. The Atlantis ERP for Spain can record UNE-EN ISO 9712 certificates alongside ASNT-based ones for companies managing mixed crews.

Bring Practical NDT to your Spanish team

Atlantis built the first-ever online practical NDT simulation portal for practice and hands-on experience. The scenario library was designed by Anoop Rayavarapu, ASNT NDT Level III and founder of Atlantis NDT, who also leads Atlantis training. Rollout starts with a short online demo, then a conversation about your work, whether that is a Tarragona turnaround crew, a Basque forging or wind fabrication NDT team, a Galician or Andalusian shipyard subcontractor, an aerospace quality group in Seville or Madrid, or a nuclear outage contractor. Together we choose the environments and methods that match your jobs, and technicians get access by browser or app wherever they are. Everything is delivered online; there is no physical centre to visit.

Pricing is quote on request, and the offer is built to be affordable, accessible and fully customizable. Book a Spain Practical NDT demo, read the Practical NDT overview, or write to info@atlantisndt.com.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an NDT simulator I can use in Spain?

Yes. The Atlantis Practical NDT simulator runs in a browser or app, so it works anywhere in Spain with a connection, from Bilbao to Algeciras. There is no physical centre to visit.

Does Practical NDT count toward UNE-EN ISO 9712 or CERTIAEND certification?

No. It is practice only. Certification under UNE-EN ISO 9712 requires its own training, experience and examinations, including a practical exam on real specimens. The simulator helps you prepare.

Can it help with NDT practical exam preparation?

It can build familiarity, speed and confidence with setups, scanning and interpretation before a practical exam. It does not replace the exam or the experience your scheme or employer requires.

Does it include radiography, and does it count toward a CSN licence?

It includes RT as technique and image interpretation practice with no radiation source. It does not count toward a CSN operator or supervisor licence.

Is it useful for wind tower and offshore foundation fabrication?

Yes for the underlying skills: UT, PAUT and TOFD on thick welds, MT on fillet and attachment welds and RT interpretation. Project procedures and acceptance criteria still come from your employer and Level III.

Is it useful for refinery turnarounds in Tarragona, Huelva or Cartagena?

Yes. The Oil & Gas Site environment covers IRIS, PMI, TOFD, PAUT corrosion mapping and LRUT, and the Storage Tank environment covers shell thickness surveys and MFL floor screening.

Which Spanish industries is it most useful for?

Refining and petrochemicals, LNG and gas infrastructure, wind energy manufacturing, shipbuilding, aerospace, nuclear power, steel and forgings, and general pressure equipment fabrication.

What experience level is it for?

All levels: guided fundamentals for new trainees, rare-defect refreshers for working technicians, and scenario building and crew benchmarking for Level IIIs and team leads.

Is the simulator available in Spanish?

The simulator's jobs and feedback are in English. Ask during the demo if Spanish-language support matters for your team.

Does Atlantis offer ASNT training in Spain?

Atlantis training follows ASNT SNT-TC-1A and is delivered online, live-virtual or onsite at the client's facility. It suits employers working to US codes or for US clients. It is not UNE-EN ISO 9712 training. See NDT training.

How do we start?

Request a demo. We will map the environments and methods to your Spanish work and provide a quote on request.

Explore more: Practical NDT overview, other European hubs for Rotterdam and Antwerp, NDT training in Barcelona, consulting services, Atlantis ERP, request a demo for Spain.

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