Companies in France and the U.S. have recently developed RFID tags with potential applications in nuclear plant welding inspections and nuclear medicine.
Areva is using an RFID system to track new welds at a plant in France, RFID Journal reported Friday. The Beweis RFID (radio-frequency identification) tag lets inspectors identify pipe welds and their accompanying radiographic images while calling up quality control data, including the weld date, serial number, GPS coordinates, pipe diameter and the welder's name. The software that runs the system is hosted on a local server. The French government's PACA labs is testing the project, known as Be-Tag.
On Tuesday, Austin, Texas-headquartered HID Global announced it has begun shipping RFID tags resistant to up to 50 Kgray of gamma radiation. The company envisions the IN Tag 300 8k transponder as a tool to help track equipment undergoing medical sterilization, among other applications. It is also heat and pressure resistant, according to a HID Global release.