Analysis of the Possibility of Using Various Time-Frequency Transformation Methods to Barkhausen Noise Characterization for the Need of Magnetic Anisotropy Evaluation in Steels

Magnetic Barkhausen Noise (MBN) is a method being currently considered by many research and development centers, as it provides knowledge about the properties and current state of the examined material. Due to the practical aspects, magnetic anisotropy evaluation is one of such key areas. However, due to the non-stationary and stochastic nature of MBN, it requires searching for postprocessing procedures, allowing the extraction of crucial information on factors influencing the phenomenon. Advances in the field of the analysis of non-stationary signals by various transformations or decompositions resulting into new time- and frequency-related representations, allow the interpretation of complex sets of signals. Therefore, in this paper, several time-frequency transformations were used to analyze the data of MBN for the purpose of the magnetic anisotropy evaluation of electrical steel. The three main transform types with their modifications were considered and compared: the Short-Time Fourier Transform, the Continuous Wavelet Transform and the Smoothed Pseudo Wigner–Ville Transform. By using Exploratory Data Analysis methods and the parametrization of time-frequency representation, the qualitative and quantitative analysis was made. The STFT presented good performance on providing useful information on MBN changes while simultaneously leading to the lowest computational efforts.