Effects of creep damage, shot peening, and case hardening on magnetic Barkhausen noise analysis

The micromagnetic emissions, commonly known as Barkhausen noise, are very sensitive to variations in the microstructure and sub-surface stress states of magnetic materials. Steel pipelines at power plants often have creep damage due to microstructural changes in their service life. Early detection of this damage will prevent costly failures. There is also an increasing demand to characterize the sub-surface stress states in structural materials such as high strength materials used in landing gear components in the aerospace industry. Shot peening is used to improve the fatigue strength of these components by the introduction of residual compressive stresses to the surface. Because the magnitude of Barkhausen noise varies with the magnitude of compressive stress, these noise measurements can be used for in-situ evaluation of the effectiveness of the shot peening process. Furthermore, surface modification such as case hardened magnetic samples can be easily observed using micromagnetic Barkhausen noise (MBE) to determine further modification needs