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Glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) is widely used in engineering fields involving aerospace, energy, transportation, etc. If internal buried defects occur due to hostile environments during fabrication and practical service, the structural integrity and safety of GFRP structures would be severely undermined. Therefore, it is indispensable to carry out effective quantitative nondestructive testing (NDT) of internal defects buried within GFRP structures. Along with the development of composite materials, microwave NDT is promising in non-intrusive inspection of defects in GFRPs. In this paper, quantitative screening of the subsurface impact damage and air void in a unidirectional GFRP via microwave reflectometry was intensively investigated. The influence of the microwave polarization direction with respect to the GFRP fiber direction on the reflection coefficient was investigated by using the equivalent relative permittivity calculated with theoretical analysis. Following this, a microwave NDT system was built up for further investigation regarding the imaging and quantitative evaluation of buried defects in GFRPs. A direct-wave suppression method based on singular-value decomposition was proposed to obtain high-quality defect images. The defect in-plane area was subsequently assessed via a proposed defect-edge identification method. The simulation and experimental results revealed that (1) the testing sensitivity to buried defects was the highest when the electric-field polarization direction is parallel to the GFRP fiber direction; and (2) the averaged evaluation accuracy regarding the in-plane area of the buried defect reached approximately 90% by applying the microwave reflectometry together with the proposed processing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large-diameter steel pipes are often used in petrochemical plants. In this large-diameter steel pipe, there are many cases where corrosion in the steel pipe is inspected from the outside of the steel pipe. In particular, there is a demand for a method for detecting defects inside or outside the steel pipe from the outer side of the steel pipe at high speed. Therefore, the electromagnetic inspection method is useful for detecting these defects. In the electromagnetic inspection method, using both static (DC) magnetic field and alternating (AC) magnetic field is proposed for inspecting inner side defects as well as outside defects. On the other hand, the Fourier series expansion of the full-wave rectified wave of the stationary AC magnetic field shows that it is a composite of the DC component and the AC component due to the cosine wave. Therefore, in this research, an inspection method using full-wave rectified AC magnetic field is proposed for inspecting inner side defects as well as surface defects. In this paper, the usefulness of the proposed method is demonstrated by electromagnetic field analysis using the "play model" that takes into account minor loop magnetic properties. In addition, a verification experiment is also carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inverse problem of electromagnetic (EM) non‐destructive testing (NdT) consists of reconstructing material defect parameters invoking EM field measurements. Uncertainties of the configuration (e.g. imprecise constitutive and geometrical parameters) are inevitably present; hence, the reconstructed defect parameters are also uncertain. In this study, the different sources of uncertainty are ranked by means of sensitivity analysis. The model‐based inversion (involving EM simulation) is computationally demanding; moreover, sensitivity analysis usually requires a vast number of repeated runs of the inversion. To overcome the computational complexity, surrogate models are applied at different levels. Interpolation on a sparse grid is used as a surrogate model of the EM simulation. The sensitivity of the reconstructed defect parameters concerning configuration uncertainties is characterised by means of Sobol indices. The Sobol indices are obtained from a polynomial chaos expansion surrogate model of the entire inversion scheme. A numerical example drawn from eddy‐current NdT is thoroughly analysed to illustrate the proposed methodology and to demonstrate its performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study demonstrated the applicability of a nondestructive microwave testing method for the long-range inspection of pipe inner surfaces. Experimental verifications were conducted using pipes with lengths of 19–26.5 m, inner diameters of 11, 19, or 39 mm, and made of either brass or austenitic stainless steel. Microwaves were emitted from a probe attached to one of the pipe ends, and the reflections due to full circumferential wall thinning 50 mm in length and 1 mm in depth situated at various distances from the end were measured. The frequency range and the probe characteristics were decided so that microwaves propagating only in TM 01 mode affect signals. After signal processing to compensate for microwave dispersion, the measured signals showed clear reflections caused by wall thinning situated 23.5 m from the pipe end at which microwaves were emitted. This study also discussed the attenuation of microwave reflection with the distance between a probe and wall thinning. The experimental results agreed well with a theoretical model describing the attenuation of microwave propagating inside a pipe, although the model did not consider the reflection of microwaves due to a flaw, the dependence of the reflection on the frequency of microwaves, or mode conversion of the microwave due to the reflection. The agreement revealed that not only frequency but also the inner diameter, electromagnetic property, and surface roughness of a pipe are needed to evaluate the length of the pipe that can be inspected by the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rolling contact fatigue (RCF) cracks that initiate from the surface of ferromagnetic materials in aviation bearings and high-speed rails are typically inclined at varying angles, posing a serious threat to safety. Therefore, a rapid and quantitative characterization of inclined cracks is of great importance. This paper investigates the distribution of magnetic fields and motion-induced eddy current (MIEC) in direct current (DC) electromagnetic non-destructive testing (NDT), and proposes an approach for measuring the direction of RCF cracks in moving ferromagnetic materials. The magnetic field and MIEC distributions in the moving ferromagnetic material are initially investigated, followed by a numerical simulation exploring the impact of crack inclination angle and depth on detection signals. The resulting relationship between crack propagation angle, depth, and detection signal is then obtained. Furthermore, a DC electromagnetic NDT platform has been designed and a quantitative detection approach for inclined cracks has been proposed and validated through experiments. Finally, a real scenario detection is carried out. The investigation presented in this paper demonstrates that the DC electromagnetic NDT technique is applicable not only for assessment RCF crack direction in moving ferromagnetic materials, such as rotating aviation bearings, but also for characterizing inclined cracks under conditions of fast relative motion between the probe and the ferromagnetic material (e.g., high-speed rail, pipeline, etc.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The magnetic flux density in the magnetizing coil during the hysteresis measurement was calculated. The influence of a slot, machined in a ferromagnetic plate was simulated. The size of the magnetizing yoke was changed and the influence of this modification was studied on the detectable flux density. The size of the slot and the thickness of the air gap, which appears between the magnetizing yoke and plate’s surface, was also taken into account. It was found that by this simulation the experimental conditions could be successfully modelled. A sensitivity analysis of the studied nondestructive testing setup was also performed and the impact of different experimental parameters was analyzed. The results of simulation can be used successfully for determining the optimal parameters of the actual measurement arrangement if method Magnetic Adaptive Testing measuring technique (which is based on systematic measurement and evaluation of minor magnetic hysteresis loops) is applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improved eddy current techniques and a method of magnetic hysteresis measurement were applied for nondestructive inspection of thickness of the hardened surface layer of the steel injectors of diesel engines. A monotonic correlation was found with enough sensitivity and acceptable signal/noise ratio between the electromagnetic parameters and the thickness of the layer. Both the hysteresis and the eddy current methods show very similar types of the correlation. Based on these results, practical application of these novel methods can be realized instead of the presently used destructive tests for inspection of the steel injectors of diesel engines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, terahertz (THz) characterization of dielectric substrates, THz planar and quasi-optical components, THz probing of planar devices, and THz nondestructive evaluation (NDE) are demonstrated. In particular, the goals of this paper are: 1) characterization of dielectric substrates for THz packaging applications; 2) design, fabrication, and evaluation of THz components built using some of these dielectric substrates; and 3) the use of the dielectric characterization approach and dielectric properties in NDE of electronic packages. The background theory for characterizing dielectric substrates using THz time-domain signals is provided. The Nelder and Mead modified simplex optimization algorithm is utilized in order to extract the dielectric properties of different packaging materials encompassing organic, inorganic, and composite materials. A planar THz power splitter, a dielectric probe, and a low-cost polymer-based quasi-optical band-stop interference filter are demonstrated. THz NDE of electronics packages is demonstrated for packaging delamination and moisture ingression in dielectric films. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Advanced image processing and flaw reconstruction algorithms of eddy current (EC) testing techniques are based on a low noise level of the measured response fields. Sensitive magnetometers such as SQUID and flux gate sensors provide a high field sensitivity of between 0.1 pT/√Hz and several pT/√Hz, and an outstanding dynamic range of more than 150 dB/√Hz due to their read out electronics based on a feed back loop. The EC measurements based on a usual 12–16 bit data recording often result in an effective dynamic range of about 65–85 dB/√Hz, due to the quantization noise of the ADC. In the case of typical EC signal processing algorithms, such as subtraction of reference signals or phase rotation a higher dynamic range is required. We, therefore, set up an EC system based on sensitive magnetometer which covers an analog dynamic range of up to 160 dB/√Hz. We report on EC measurements with real 21 and 24 bit field resolution, on several aluminium samples and adapted signal processing for the separation of defect signals or the improvement of the spatial resolution. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Microwaves in TM 01 mode are useful for detecting multiple thinning defects. • Two defects in a metal pipe were located in a single measurement. • A 1 mm deep flaw does not hamper the detection of other flaws behind that. In this study, the applicability of a nondestructive method using microwaves to the detection of multiple pipe wall thinning defects was investigated. In numerical simulation, a single full circumferential defect was introduced into a straight pipe of 19 mm inner diameter, and the effect of the defect on transmitted waves was investigated. The transmitted energy ratio of the TM 01 mode to the emitted wave was found to be 93% in average even in the presence of a 1-mm depth thinning. After that, experimental measurements were performed using a flanged brass tube with two artificial thinning defects. By applying signal processing to the measured S -parameters, clear reflections from the two defects were observed. By comparing the signals, we confirmed that the first full circumferential defect provides at most 12% amplitude attenuation of the reflected signal from the second defect, which should be related to the distance and size of the defects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques are used to evaluate the material degradation of ferromagnetic materials, for example, in sensitive environments, such as thermal power plants, where the materials are subjected to creep damage. There is no consensus on the use of an electromagnetic NDT technique to characterize the evolution of creep damage in high-chromium ferritic steels. In this work, an overview and comparison of three different electromagnetic NDT techniques that were applied to high-chromium steels is provided to understand creep evolution in terms of microstructural changes, such as precipitation, dislocation and grain size. To quantify the empirical measurements, a modelling technique was proposed for each applied method. The model parameters were optimized for each NDT technique and tested material. Depending on the model parameters, the accuracy of the parameter determination depends strongly on the NDT technique, which indicates its correlation with the microstructural information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A shielding plate can shorten the size of RFEC probe by 2 times. • The application of a ferromagnetic ring in RFEC can improve the detected signal. • The RFEC probe with shielding plate and ferromagnetic ring has a good performance. Remote field eddy current (RFEC) nondestructive testing has its unique advantages in defect detection of metal pipelines, such as being unaffected by skin effect and material properties, but the size of RFEC probe is large and the signal received by the detection coil is weak. In this paper, a shielding plate is introduced between excitation and detection coil, and a ferromagnetic ring is introduced outside the ferromagnetic pipeline. Both theoretical analysis and finite element method (FEM) simulation are carried out. The result of FEM simulation shows that the distance between the excitation and the detection coil can be shortened after adding a shielding plate; particularly, setting a 1 mm-thick shielding plate 5 mm away from the excitation coil has an optimum optimization effect, which could shorten the distance between the excitation coil and the detection coil by 2 times. The ferromagnetic ring can strengthen the detected signal, and the closer it gets to the detection coil, the stronger magnetic flux density will be detected in the latter. Therefore, it provides a direction for the structural optimization of RFEC testing device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]