Media Contacts:
Bob Coakley Dapco (203) 438-9696 x218 bcoakley@dapcondt.com

LEADING UE CYLINDER INSPECTION MANUFACTURER ANNOUNCES LAUNCH OF NEW TURNKEY CYLINDER REQUALIFICATION SERVICE

Dapco Industries Inc., a leading supplier of ultrasonic (UE) cylinder inspection systems, has been issued a Special Permit that allows the company to requalify certain steel, aluminum and specialty gas cylinders using ultrasonic examination (UE) in lieu of hydrostatic testing. The Special Permit was issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT-SP 14920).

Using ultrasonic examination (UE) to requalify high pressure cylinders offers a number of key advantages over hydrostatic testing including increased efficiency, lower manpower and reduced operating costs. Typically only larger organizations like Airgas, Inc. (NYSE: ARG) and The Linde Group have had access to the Dapco UE Cylinder Inspection equipment.

“The main drawback that many companies have faced implementing ultrasonic examination (UE) has been the need to have specialized training and a senior review technologist to oversee your operations,” said Patrick Graham, president. “The cost of retaining a resource to oversee this process has been prohibitive to most.”

Under Dapco’s new turnkey Cylinder Inspection Program, companies have the option to purchase or lease the Dapco UE Cylinder Inspection Systems. Dapco will then train and certify the company’s staff to operate the Dapco UE equipment in compliance with the DOT issued Special Permit.

LEADING UE CYLINDER INSPECTION MANUFACTURER ANNOUNCES LAUNCH OF NEW TURKEY CYLINDER REQUALIFICATION SERVICE, P.2

"We are very pleased to receive our Special Permit and excited about the impact it will have within the Compressed Gas Industry." said Patrick Graham, president. “This permit will allow us to expand our product and service offering and in return, enables all the companies that perform cylinder requalification, access to Dapco’s industry leading technology and the benefits of ultrasonic examination.”

About Dapco Industries

Dapco Industries (www.dapcondt.com) specializes in the design and manufacturing of nondestructive testing instrumentation, ultrasonic transducers and wheel probes, and customized turnkey ultrasonic inspection systems used for high throughput, real-time inspection of products. Dapco is a global leader in the development and design of ultrasonic cylinder inspection systems, ultrasonic rail flaw detection vehicles and systems and ultrasonic wheel inspection systems

Dapco Industries is part ofNordco, Inc. The Nordco family of companies offer an extensive selection of products and services that help the railroad industry keep its trains running safely, efficiently and on time. The family of companies consists of Nordco Inc.; J.E.R. Overhaul; Shuttlewagon;Dapco Industries; and Nordco Rail Service. Nordco is headquartered in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, with operations in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada; Arcola, Illinois; Grandview, Missouri; Ridgefield, Connecticut; and Lee’s Summit, Missouri. For more information, go to www.dapcondt.com.

News Release
SC- 09125 
 
Media Contacts:
Bob Coakley  Dapco   (203) 438-9696 x218 bcoakley@dapcondt.com

Dapco improves safety for railroads, pipelines and other critical infrastructure with TI’s new six-core DSP 

Processing power, real-time speed of TI’s TMS320C6472 DSP allow Dapco’s non-destructive testing equipment to identify more defects inside metal and other materials 

Dallas and Ridgefield, Connecticut (November 3, 2009) – Dapco Industries, Inc. is using Texas Instruments Incorporated’s (TI) (NYSE: TXN) new TMS320C6472 digital signal processor (DSP) to improve the ability of Dapco’s non-destructive testing (NDT) equipment to peer inside railroad rails, high-speed train wheels, high pressure gas cylinders, and other critical transportation, power generation, and infrastructure components to pinpoint internal defects before structural failures cause safety risks to life and property. Dapco will deliver the first commercial version of its C6472-based ultrasonic testing instrumentation to the Union Pacific Railroad next month. Processing power up to 4.2 GHz, faster real-time processing speeds and the industry’s lowest power consumption were critical features imperative in Dapco’s decision to deploy the six-core C6472 DSP at the heart of their test equipment.

“Our next-generation test and inspection instruments will have significantly greater precision and be capable of 3D imaging, similar to that of medical ultrasonic imaging; things that just were not possible with legacy equipment,” said Ron Keenan instrumentation development leader at Dapco. “Internal defects in the structures and components we are dealing with are simply dangerous. Because of the capabilities of the C6472, our defect detection capability will increase in speed and accuracy. Technicians in the field, inspecting rail or high-pressure gas cylinders, and in factories where pipe and other product is being manufactured, will be able to locate and classify defects that were previously considered undetectable. By accelerating the speed and accuracy of these tests, we will lower the cost of the inspection process and make it more effective.”

Dapco is implementing the C6472 in a new system architecture designed to detect the smallest defects quickly and allow technicians to examine their characteristics much more closely than they could in the past.  Moreover, the system will have the intelligence to dynamically and automatically categorize defects, reducing the risk of human operator error. TI DSPs are also used by other companies for imaging and diagnostic systems as well as other high-performance imaging applications. 

High-Speed Architecture

Dapco’s next-generation NDT systems have been designed for “real-time” digital processing of received acoustic signals within a 100 micro-second (µs) test cycle time. That is, every 100 µs, the C6472-based system pulses acoustic energy into the test piece, and monitors the test piece for any returned acoustic energy. The system digitizes and analyzes the received acoustic signals for rendering of detailed 3D images of any internal anomalies, or for application to real-time pattern recognition algorithms.

The high-speed peripherals included with the C6472 were also critical to Dapco’s selection of the device. In particular, Dapco is using the C6472’s Serial RapidIO (SRIO) ports to achieve transfer rates of five gigabits per second (Gbps) between the system’s pre-processor FPGAs and the C6472 DSP cores. The C6472’s high-speed Gigabit Ethernet interface as well as its Double Data Rate 2 (DDR2) memory interface are also deployed in Dapco’s next-generation systems.  

Low Power

The C6472’s industry-leading power consumption efficiency was another important consideration for Dapco. Future generations of Dapco’s NDT inspection and test systems will be battery-operated. As a result, deploying the lowest power components in the next generation of their systems was an important step in this direction.

“We always try to design our systems with a ‘green’ mindset,” said Keenan. “We will be designing low-power features into our next-generation systems so that partitions of the system can be powered down when they’re not in use. That will reduce overall power consumption. And, of course, the low power consumption of the C6472 was a very big plus in this regard.” 
Pricing and availability

 The TMS320C6472 is available for USD $140 in quantities of 1K units. To help speed development, developers can take advantage of the low cost high performance evaluation module TMDXEVM6472 for USD $349. 

Find out more about TI’s C6472 DSP by visiting the links below:

• C6472 Overview Page: www.ti.com/c6472-pr-customer-wn  
• C6472 EVM Folder: www.ti.com/c6472-pr-customer-evm
• Related White Paper: www.ti.com/c6472-pr-customer-wp
• C6472 Overview Video: www.ti.com/c6472-pr-customer-v
• Follow TI on Twitter: http://bit.ly/REsI6 

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) helps customers solve problems and develop new electronics that make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun. A global semiconductor company, TI innovates through design, sales and manufacturing operations in more than 30 countries.  For more information, go to www.ti.com. 

Trademarks

TMS320C64x and C64x+ are trademarks of Texas Instruments. All other trademarks and registered trademarks belong to their respective owners. 

About Dapco Industries

Dapco Industries (www.dapcondt.com) specializes in the design and manufacturing of nondestructive testing instrumentation, ultrasonic transducers and wheel probes, and customized  turnkey ultrasonic inspection systems used for high throughput, real-time inspection of products for factory/mill in-line and off-line applications.  Dapco is a global leader in the development and design of ultrasonic rail inspection vehicles.

Dapco Industries is part of Nordco, Inc. The Nordco family of companies offer an extensive selection of products and services that help the railroad industry keep its trains running safely, efficiently and on time. The family of companies consists of Nordco Inc.; J.E.R. Overhaul; Shuttlewagon; Dapco Industries; and Nordco Rail Service. Nordco is headquartered in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, with operations in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada; Arcola, Illinois; Grandview, Missouri; Ridgefield, Connecticut; and Lee’s Summit, Missouri. For more information, go to www.dapcondt.com.

DAPCO INDUSTRIES PRESS RELEASE

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SIMMONS AND DAPCO INDUSTRIES INC. SIGN MARKETING AGREEMENT

DAPCO Industries, Inc. of Ridgefield, Connecticut and Simmons Machine Tool Corporation of Albany, New York have signed an agreement to offer DAPCO’s Turnkey Ultrasonic Inspection Systems for use with the Simmons Stanray and Hegenscheidt U2000-400 underfloor wheel profiling machines as well as other key Simmons Axle and Wheelset Metrology and Inspection systems. The companies will provide complete integration of DAPCO’s ultrasonic inspection product into the above mentioned Simmons products.

DAPCO’s Turnkey Ultrasonic Inspection Systems are used in a wide range of systems but have recently been adapted to inspect for possible sub-surface cracks on railroad wheels and axles. Integrating the Dapco Wheel Inspection system into the profiling operation allows the end user to inspect the wheel either before or after the profiling operation. Having this added feature provides the rolling stock engineering groups with the flexibility needed to find the type of defects that cause broken wheel derailments. Dapco has recently installed similar systems for Amtrak and the Union Pacific Railroad.

Dapco Industries (www.dapcondt.com) is part of Nordco, Inc. The Nordco family of companies offer an extensive selection of products and services that help the railroad industry keep its trains running safely, efficiently and on time. The family of companies consists of Nordco Inc.; J.E.R. Overhaul; Shuttlewagon;Dapco Industries; and Nordco Rail Service. Nordco is headquartered in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, with operations in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada; Arcola, Illinois; Grandview, Missouri; Ridgefield, Connecticut; and Blue Springs, Missouri.

Simmons Machine Tool Corporation (www.smtgroup.com) manufactures machines dedicated to railway wheelset maintenance or production applications. The company is part of the NSH Group which is comprised of Hegenscheidt-MFD in Erkelenz, Germany, Niles-Simmons Industrieanlagen GmbH in Chemnitz, Germany, and NSH-CTI in Nanchang, China. The NSH Group has more than 1,100 employees worldwide and group sales exceeding US$ 380 Million.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Bob Coakley
Manager, Sales & Marketing

Dapco Industries, Inc
241 Ethan Allen Highway
Ridgefield, Connecticut 06877
203-438-9696 x218
bcoakley@dapcoNDT.com
www.dapcoNDT.com

DAPCO INDUSTRIES PRESS RELEASE

FOR RELEASE

August 18, 2009

DAPCO TAPS INDUSTRY VETERAN TO LEAD TRAINING AND AFTERMARKET SUPPORT TEAMS

Dapco Industries Inc., a leading supplier of ultrasonic non-destructive inspection systems and equipment, has named Terry Banach as manager of training and aftermarket support. With more than 39 years of experience in the field of non-destructive testing, Banach will play a key leadership role in the development and execution of Dapco’s Aftermarket Support and Training strategy.

“We are very pleased to attract someone of Terry’s caliber to lead our Training and Aftermarket support teams,” said Patrick Graham, president. “The addition of Terry will enable Dapco to expand its training and sales support offerings and further strengthens our ability to meet the needs of our customers. His extensive experience in the field of non-destructive testing make Terry ideally suited to drive Dapco’s support strategy.”

Dapco announced it has also named Mike Smollar as Field Service Supervisor. Smollar will report directly to Mr. Banach and will be focused on building a world class field service team that is responsive to our clients needs and capable of resolving even the most complex issues in a timely manner.

DAPCO TAPS INDUSTRY VETERAN TO LEAD TRAINING AND AFTERMARKET SUPPORT TEAMS, P.2

About Mr. Banach

Prior to joining Dapco, Mr. Banach was a Sales Support Engineer with GE Inspection Technologies, USA (formerly Krautkramer).During his 39-year career in the field of ultrasonic nondestructive testing, Mr. Banach has worked in various engineering, training, and marketing capacities with ultrasonic products for tube inspection systems.

Mr. Banach has ASNT Level III certification in ultrasonic testing methodology and has written and published technical papers on the application of ultrasonic equipment in production environments. Mr. Banach is a member of ASNT and is currently the Chairman of the North American Board of the International Tube Association.

Mr. Banach’s interest in ultrasonic technology began during his service in the U.S. Navy where he served as a sonarman. He a holds a Master of Education (MEd) with specialty in Instructional Design for Industrial training and Human Performance Technology (HPT); a Bachelor of Science Degree in electrical engineering; an associates degree in chemical engineering.

About Mr. Smollar

Prior to joining Dapco, Mr. Smollar worked in various field service and quality management positions in the field of non-destructive testing including working as a NDT Technician with General Electric. Mr. Smollar holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and has ASNT Level III certification in ultrasonic testing methodology.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Patrick Graham
President
Dapco Industries, Inc.
241 Ethan Allen Highway
Ridgefield, Connecticut 06877
203-438-9696
pgraham@dapcoNDT.com
www.dapcoNDT.com

Or

Bob Coakley
Manager, Sales & Marketing
Dapco Industries, Inc.
241 Ethan Allen Highway
Ridgefield, Connecticut 06877
203-438-9696 x218
bcoakley@dapcoNDT.com
www.dapcoNDT.com