Introduction

Dr. B. Venkatraman, post graduated from St. Josephs College (Autonomous), and obtained his doctorate from Madras University in the area of Non Destructive Testing.

He is Fellow of the Indian Society for Non-Destructive Testing, Fellow of Indian Association for Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Fellow SAEST, President, Indian Society for Radiation Physics, Chairman, National Certification Board, Chairman, Indian Society for NDT Kalpakkam Chapter and Member of the Bureau of Indian Standard Sub Committee on NDT. He is a Professor of Homi Bhabha National Institute and has served as Member Doctoral Advisory Committee in many universities. He has also served as coordinator for various DST projects and as a consultant for the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna Coordinated Research Project on Digital Industrial Radiology.

He has over 200 publications in Journals and Conferences including two articles in Encyclopedia of Material Science, two monographs, three books and is the series editor along with Dr Baldev Raj for the NDT handbooks on Ultrasonics, Eddy Current Testing, magnetic particle Testing and Acoustic Emission testing published by National Certification Board, ISNT. He is also the co-author of the standard on Infrared Thermography accepted by International Standards Organisation - first NDT standard from India. He has been invited by the International Committee on NDT to co-author monographs in the area of thermal imaging and NDE for ART Objects.

He is the recipient of the Prestigious Homi Bhabha Science and Technology Award 2007 for Individual Excellence (highest award of the Department of Atomic Energy for individual scientific excellence) , DAE Group Achievement Award 2008, 2010, 2011, IIW - Sharp Tools Award 2011, INS Gold Medal 2005, ISNT-NDT Man of the Year Award ( R & D) 2001, D & H Schereon Award, 1993 and has won more than 10 best paper awards.

He has been invited to chair sessions in 16th World Conference on NDT, Montreal, 12th Asian Pacific Conference on NDT, New Zealand, 2nd Asian Workshop on Maintenance Technology, Japan, 1ihWorld Conference on NDT, Shanghai, 13th Asian Pacific Conference on NDT, Yokohama and many national conferences in India. He was a visiting scientist at Fraunhofer Institute of NDT Sarrbrucken, Germany. He is the President of the Asian Pacific Committee on NDT (comprising of about 20 countries) and has been invited to organize the pre-conference workshop on Imaging NDE along with Dr Baldev Raj in the 18th World Conference on NDT in Durban, South Africa. He has guided more than 100 BE, M.Tech and M.Sc students for their projects and is presently guiding seven students for their PhD in the area of NDE.