Innovation leads, Witness the Miracle: Third Preparatory Meeting for the 2026 Far East NDT New Technology & Application Forum (FENDT) Held in Nanchang

On April 11, 2026, the third preparatory meeting for the 2026 FENDT Forum was held at Primus Hotel Nanchang International Expo City, Jiangxi province. Over 40 representatives from domestic universities, research institutions, inspection and testing organizations, enterprises, public institutions, and industry associations gathered to discuss the preparations for the 2026 FENDT Forum.

The preparatory meeting was chaired by Dr. Zheng Kai, a member of the FENDT council from the Special Equipment Safety Supervision Inspection Institute of Jiangsu Province. The meeting was conducted efficiently and in an orderly manner, and structured into four main parts.

Part 1: Speech

At the beginning of the meeting, Prof. Xu Chunguang from Beijing Institute of Technology, chairman of the FENDT council, delivered a brief speech and extended a warm welcome and sincere gratitude to the guests present. He pointed out that the continuous prosperity of the FENDT Forum is inseparable from the efforts and support of every participant. He also called on everyone to actively engage in the various preparations for this Forum, offer more valuable suggestions, and jointly promote the FENDT Forum to reach new heights.

Prof. Lu Chao, President of Nanchang Hangkong University and the chairman of the 2026 FENDT Forum, emphasized that Nanchang Hangkong University would closely cooperate with the organizing committee of the FENDT Forum, spare no effort to provide comprehensive support and services, and jointly hold a high-level, distinctive, and influential industry event. Meanwhile, he also expressed that Nanchang Hangkong University would fully leverage its unique advantages in discipline construction, talent reserve, and scientific research innovation to assist the FENDT Forum in continuously building a higher-quality platform for academic exchanges and technology transformation.

Part 2: Summary of Preparations Progress

Dr. Zheng Kai reviewed the progress made in the two previous preparatory meetings and summarized the phased achievements accomplished in the preliminary preparations. He also reported the key issues that needed to be addressed at this preparatory meeting, item by item.

Prof. Hu Bo from Nanchang Hangkong University reported that a meeting plan has been submitted to the Jiangxi Provincial Education Department. The application will be approved once the supplementary conference documents are submitted. She also pointed out that the leaders of the market supervision system will be invited by Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Inspection, Testing and Certification. The invitations for the leaders of other systems will be further negotiated in the future to steadily advance all the invitation matters.

Prof. Rao Jing from Beihang University reported that Prof. Yan Yong has been invited to serve as the chairperson of the academic committee for the 2026 FENDT Forum. Prof. Yan is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering of the UK, the director of the “Carbon Neutrality International Research Center” of the International Innovation Institute of Beihang University, and the chief scientist. Furthermore, the representatives of experts also reported on the invitations to several scholars and experts from the UK, Spain, South Korea, Portugal, and Singapore.

The organizers of each parallel session of the 2026 FENDT Forum also successively reported on the corresponding preparations and future plans in the following order: Parallel Session for Electromagnetism, Parallel Session for Photoacoustic and Ultrasonic, Parallel Session for Manufacturing with Control of Residual Stress, Parallel Session for Infrared and Terahertz Waves, Parallel Session for Aeronautics, Astronautics and Composite Materials, Parallel Session for Nuclear Power, Parallel Session for Digital Ray, Parallel Session for Rail Transit, Parallel Session for Petroleum Pipe and Equipment, Parallel Session for Special Equipment, Parallel Session for Nondestructive Testing Standards, Parallel Session for Sensors and Instruments, Parallel Session for AI Non-destructive Testing, Parallel Session for Multi-Array Sensing and Imaging Technology, Parallel Session for Ultrasonic Guided Waves Testing Technology, Parallel Session for Hydrogen Energy Equipment and Detection Technology, Parallel Session for Full Focus Phased Array Ultrasonic, Parallel Session for Advanced Ultrasonic Testing Technology and Equipment, Parallel Session for Steel and Mining, International Parallel Session, Parallel Session for Jiangxi, Parallel Session for Communication on Process Test Report. Additionally, the China Special Equipment Inspection and Research Institute also added a Parallel Session for High Temperature Online Non-destructive Testing Technology Equipment.

This FENDT Forum also made significant adjustments to the award settings for conference papers. To encourage more young students to participate in paper submissions and promote domestic academic exchanges and results presentation in the non-destructive testing field, the “Leading Outstanding Student Paper Award” increased the number of recipients and the amount of the award. Additionally, to facilitate the application and identification by relevant units, the organizing committee of the 2026 FENDT Forum plans to optimize and adjust the names of some awards. Specifically, the “Eintik Breakthrough Award” will be renamed as “FAREAST Breakthrough Award”, and the “FAREAST Excellent English Paper Award” will be renamed as “Eintik Excellent English Paper Award”. The relevant name changes will be uniformly announced through the subsequent conference award notifications.

Part 3: Discussion of Key Event Programmes

Guo Weican, a senior engineer and a member of the FENDT council, and Dr. Tang Ping, both from Zhejiang Academy of Special Equipment Science, introduced the preparatory progress of the key innovative project “Witness the Miracle: 5‑Hour Showcase” for the 2026 FENDT Forum. The project consists of a three‑hour “ZhiJiang Excellence Cup New Competition” session and a two‑hour “Science Experiment, Technology Research and Application Results Release Event” session.

The 2026 “ZhiJiang Excellence Cup New Competition” introduces new competition formats, namely the hot topic competition, demonstration competition, and challenge competition, aiming to stimulate innovation across the industry through diverse competitive platforms. Among these competitions, the hot topic competition centers on wall-climbing robots. At that time, steel tanks and pipelines simulating actual inspection environments will be erected in the venue’s open space. Multiple teams will demonstrate various types of wall-climbing robotic systems, performing tasks such as grinding, ultrasonic testing, and magnetic particle inspection on-site. Moreover, the whole process will be video-tracked and broadcast live. Registered participants can closely observe, comment, and interact with the demonstrations. The hot topic competition will also set up popular awards. Through a combination of expert comments and representative voting, the winners will be finally determined, and certificates will be awarded. Additionally, “Science Experiment, Technology Research and Application Results Release Event” will centrally release various non-destructive testing-related results, showcase the latest scientific research progress, technological breakthroughs, and application cases in the industry, thereby accelerating the high-quality promotion and adoption of advanced technologies, processes, and methods.

As a distinctive academic event created by the FENDT Forum in recent years, the theme salons were guided by focusing on industry hotspots and the service of industry development, and have received extensive attention and praise. Liu Yingwei from Southwest Jiaotong University presented the preparation plan for the theme salon of the 2026 FENDT Forum. This salon event is themed as “From Visibility to Achievability: How Embodied Intelligence Reshapes the Capability Boundaries of Non-Destructive Testing”, focusing on the deep integration of embodied intelligence and non-destructive testing. The salon adopts a “three-round progressive + two-round interactive” mode, successively focusing on concept clarification, empowerment imagination, and breakthrough of bottlenecks. Moreover, it will also invite guests from renowned entities in embodied intelligence to have cross-disciplinary dialogues with experts in non-destructive testing. Interactive sessions such as QR code creation and on-site questioning will also be set up to create an industry communication platform with cutting-edge, academic, and participatory features, helping to explore the application paths of embodied intelligence in the non-destructive testing field.

Part 4: Other Issues to Be Discussed

The representatives at the preparatory meeting actively discussed various aspects such as improving the quality of conference papers, enhancing the quality of parallel session reports, optimizing the application process of the conference, addressing the demand for simultaneous interpretation for international experts, establishing a nondestructive testing research fund, selecting experts for thematic salons, refining conference logistics and participant experience, and strengthening publicity and official account management. These discussions are aimed at continuous improvement, laying a solid foundation, and clarifying the direction for further strengthening the industry influence of the FENDT Forum and consolidating its academic benchmark status.

Finally, Researcher Qiang Tianpeng, the founder and honorary chairman of the FENDT Forum, delivered a summarized speech at this preparatory meeting. He emphasized that the FENDT Forum has been held for over twenty sessions, attributing the fundamental reason for its enduring vitality and success to an unwavering advancement of technological innovation. As a major innovative project of the 2026 FENDT Forum, “Witness the Miracle: 5‑Hour Showcase” needs the solid support and active participation of all representatives. He also called on all organizing units, session chairs, and all attendees to actively participate and arrive early to jointly promote the successful hosting of this event, ensuring that the FENDT Forum always maintains its innovative vitality and remains at the forefront of the industry.

This preparatory meeting marks the entry into the final sprint phase for the 2026 FENDT Forum. The 2026 FENDT Forum will gather industry wisdom and inspire cutting-edge thinking through a series of innovative measures, continuously promoting technological progress and industrial upgrading in the non-destructive testing field, and ultimately injecting new vitality into the high-quality development of the NDT industry. In the future, we will strive for excellence and innovation, presenting an even higher-quality and more influential NDT industry event.