Yunze He

Steel Corrosion Characterization Using Pulsed Eddy Current Systems

A pulsed eddy current (PEC) system has been used to characterize atmospheric corrosion on steel samples. International Paint has supplied coated and uncoated mild steel (S275) samples with marine atmospheric corrosion (exposure time between 1 and 10 months). The PEC response due to corrosion is a complex mix of many factors, including conductivity, permeability and material thickness variation, which are all taken into account through experimental studies and the extraction of signal features. Considering the conductivity and permeability variation in the corrosion layer or the actual rust region, two time-domain features, each representing the conductivity and permeability, are extracted and used to characterize corrosion. The relationship between PEC features and exposure time has been derived, which can be useful for corrosion rate measurement and early-stage corrosion evaluation and prediction. In conclusion, PEC testing has the potential for corrosion characterization and monitoring in areas such as the marine industry.

Reduction of Lift-Off Effects in Pulsed Eddy Current for Defect Classification

Pulsed eddy-current (PEC) testing is an electromagnetic nondestructive testing & evaluation (NDT&E) technique and defect classification is one of the most important steps in PEC defect characterization. With pulse excitation, the PEC response signals contain more features in time domain and rich information in frequency domain. This paper investigates feature extraction techniques for PEC defect classification including rising time, differential time to peak and differential time to zero, spectrum amplitude, and differential spectrum amplitude. Experimental study has been undertaken on Al-Mn 3003 alloy samples with artificial surface defects, sub-surface defects, and defects in two-layer structures under different lift-off. Experimental results show that methods are effective to classify the defects both in single-layer structures and two-layer structures. Comparing the results of different methods, it is found that differential process can eliminate the lift-off in defect classification in both time domain and frequency domain. The study can be extended to defect classification in complex structures, where lift-off effects are significant.

Unsupervised Sparse Pattern Diagnostic of Defects With Inductive Thermography Imaging System

This paper proposes an unsupervised method for diagnosing and monitoring defects in inductive thermography imaging system. The proposed method is fully automated and does not require manual selection from the user of the specific thermal frame images for defect diagnosis. The core of the method is a hybrid of physics-based inductive thermal mechanism with signal processing-based pattern extraction algorithm using sparse greedy-based principal component analysis (SGPCA). An internal functionality is built into the proposed algorithm to control the sparsity of SGPCA and to render better accuracy in sizing the defects. The proposed method is demonstrated on automatically diagnosing the defects on metals and the accuracy of sizing the defects. Experimental tests and comparisons with other methods have been conducted to verify the efficacy of the proposed method. Very promising results have been obtained where the performance of the proposed method is very near to human perception.

Multidimensional Tensor-Based Inductive Thermography With Multiple Physical Fields for Offshore Wind Turbine Gear Inspection

Condition monitoring (CM), fault diagnosis (FD), and nondestructive testing (NDT) are currently considered crucial means to increase the reliability and availability of wind turbines. Many research works have focused on CM and FD for different components of wind turbine. Gear is typically used in a wind turbine. There is insufficient space to locate the sensors for long-term monitoring of fatigue state of gear, thus, offline inspection using NDT in both manufacturing and maintenance processes are critically important. This paper proposes an inductive thermography method for gear inspection. The ability to track the properties variation in gear such as electrical conductivity, magnetic permeability, and thermal conductivity has promising potential for the evaluation of material state undertaken by contact fatigue. Conventional thermography characterization methods are built based on single physical field analysis such as heat conduction or in-plane eddy current field. This study develops a physics-based multidimensional spatial-transient-stage tensor model to describe the thermo optical flow pattern for evaluating the contact fatigue damage. A helical gear with different cycles of contact fatigue tests was investigated and the proposed method was verified. It indicates that the proposed methods are effective tool for gear inspection and fatigue evaluation, which is important for early warning and condition-based maintenance.

PEC Frequency Band Selection for Locating Defects in Two-Layer Aircraft Structures With Air Gap Variations

Multilayer structures are widely used in aircraft fuselage. Because of the interlayer air gap caused by deformation or disbonding, conventional single-frequency eddy current cannot discriminate between second-layer defect signals and gap signals. In this paper, several defects at varied locations (i.e., first-layer surface, first-layer subsurface, second-layer surface, and second-layer subsurface) are manufactured into two-layer Al-Mn 3003 alloy specimen with various air gaps. Pulsed eddy current (PEC) is investigated in combination with principal component analysis (PCA) to classify and locate defects in the specimen. The new feature named differential frequency to zero is proposed, and the frequency responses of selected frequency band are processed through PCA. The principal components are used for locating defects. The experimental results show that first-layer surface defects, first-layer subsurface defects, second-layer surface defects, and second-layer subsurface defects can be classified when air gap is varied from 0 to 1.4 mm through the proposed methods. In conclusion, PEC testing with the help of PCA can eliminate the interlayer air gap and liftoff effect, which has potential for defect characterization in multilayer aircraft structures.

Eddy current step heating thermography for quantitatively evaluation

This Letter proposed eddy current step heating thermography (ECSHT) combing eddy current excitation with SHT. It has been verified through numerical and experimental studies that the temperature-time1/2 curve can be used to detect the subsurface defects. Separation time was defined and extracted from temperature responses as characteristic feature. Experiment studies with mild steel sample were conducted, and the experimental results showed that two features representing separation time can be used to measure the defects depth based on their linear relationships.

Eddy current pulsed phase thermography considering volumetric induction heating for delamination evaluation in carbon fiber reinforced polymers

Anisotropy and inhomogeneity of carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) result in that many traditional non-destructive inspection techniques are inapplicable on the delamination evaluation. This letter introduces eddy current pulsed phase thermography (ECPPT) for CFRPs evaluation considering volumetric induction heating due to small electrical conductivity, abnormal thermal wave propagation, and Fourier analysis. The proposed methods were verified through experimental studies under transmission and reflection modes. Using ECPPT, the influence of the non-uniform heating effect and carbon fiber structures can be suppressed, and then delamination detectability can be improved dramatically over eddy current pulsed thermography.

Eddy Current Volume Heating Thermography and Phase Analysis for Imaging Characterization of Interface Delamination in CFRP

Imaging inspection is highly demanded in the optimization of industry processes. Optical imaging inspection is not applicable for inside defects, while infrared (IR) imaging inspection can provide information about internal structure of objects. Eddy current thermography is an emerging IR imaging inspection technique for conductive materials or objects. This paper presents eddy current volume heating thermography (ECVHT) and phase analysis for delamination inspection in carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRPs) based on the previously proposed eddy current pulsed phase thermography (ECPPT). The proposed method has been verified through experimental studies under both transmission and reflection modes. After discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of temperature responses, the phasegram and phase spectra can be used to image and characterize interface delamination in CFRP due to elimination of nonuniform heating effect and carbon fiber structures. With the whole temperature response processed by DFT, carbon fiber structures and delamination can be differentiated due to periodic oscillation of phase spectra. With temperature response in cooling phase processed by DFT, some characteristic features can be extracted to construct the new phase images according to the shape of phase spectra. In all, using ECVHT and phase analysis, imaging characterization for delamination can get much better performance than conventional visible optical inspection system and eddy current pulsed thermography.

Inductive pulsed phase thermography for reducing or enlarging the effect of surface emissivity variation

Emissivity variation introduces illusory temperature inhomogeneity and results in false alarms in infrared thermography, thus, it is important to separate the influence of surface emissivity variation. This letter experimentally demonstrates the advantages of phase information to reduce or enlarge the effect of surface emissivity variation with inductive pulsed phase thermography, where inductive excitation is emissivity-independent and avoids the effect of emissivity variation in heating process. The directly heated area and the indirectly heated area are divided in the phasegrams. The emissivity variation is removed or enlarged perfectly at the specific frequency and defect detectability is improved remarkably.

Eddy Current Pulsed Thermography with Different Excitation Configurations for Metallic Material and Defect Characterization.

This paper reviews recent developments of eddy current pulsed thermography (ECPT) for material characterization and nondestructive evaluation (NDE). Due to the fact that line-coil-based ECPT, with the limitation of non-uniform heating and a restricted view, is not suitable for complex geometry structures evaluation, Helmholtz coils and ferrite-yoke-based excitation configurations of ECPT are proposed and compared. Simulations and experiments of new ECPT configurations considering the multi-physical-phenomenon of hysteresis losses, stray losses, and eddy current heating in conjunction with uniform induction magnetic field have been conducted and implemented for ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic materials. These configurations of ECPT for metallic material and defect characterization are discussed and compared with conventional line-coil configuration. The results indicate that the proposed ECPT excitation configurations can be applied for different shapes of samples such as turbine blade edges and rail tracks.