This volume (Parts A and B) contains the edited papers presented at the annual Review of Progress in Quan?itative Nondestructive Evalua­ tion held at the University of California (San Diego) in LaJo11a, August 3-8, 1986. The Review was organized and sponsored by the Center for NDE at Iowa State University and the Ames Laboratory, in cooperation with the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, USDOE, and the Materia1s Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Approximately 400 attendees, a new record, representing various government agencies, industry, and universities participated in the technical presentations, poster sessions, and discussions. This Review, with its wide-ranging interchange of technical information, stands as one of the most compre­ hensive in the field of NDE research and engineering. In order to present the reader with a more usefu1 document, we have organized the symposium papers in these Proceedings by subject rather than by the order of presentation at the Review. Topical subject headings have been selected under which the 1arge majority of papers wou1d reasonably falI. Here, again, we have revised the format used in former years to accommodate an evolving focus of interest in the field. These categories cover a broad spectrum of research in NDE and encompass activities from fundamental work to early engineering applications. In the following paragraphs we offer a brief summary of the research presented in these Proceedings.