Pulsed Eddy-Current Based Giant Magnetoresistive System for the Inspection of Aircraft Structures

Author

Yang, Guang ; Tamburrino, Antonello ; Udpa, Lalita ; Udpa, Satish S. ; Zeng, Zhiwei ; Deng, Yiming ; Que, Peiwen

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI, USA

Volume

46

Issue

3

fYear

2010

fDate

3/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

910

Lastpage

917

Abstract

Research in nondestructive evaluation is constantly increasing the sensitivity of detection of small cracks embedded deep in layered aircraft structures. Pulsed eddy-current (PEC) techniques using coil probes have shown considerable promise in detection and characterization of buried cracks in multilayered structures. In this paper, we describe the design and development of a nondestructive inspection system that uses pulse excitation of a planar multiline coil to generate a transient field that is detected via a giant magnetoresistive (GMR) field sensor. An analysis algorithm using features in time and frequency domain processes the experimentally measured signals for automatic detection of small cracks under fasteners in multilayered structures at a depth of up to 10 mm.

Keywords

aerospace components; coils; crack detection; eddy current testing; fasteners; giant magnetoresistance; magnetic sensors; magnetoresistive devices; multilayers; analysis algorithm; buried cracks; depth 10 mm; fasteners; frequency domain process; giant magnetoresistive field sensor; layered aircraft structures; multilayered structures; nondestructive evaluation; nondestructive inspection system; planar multiline coil; pulsed eddy-current techniques; small crack automatic detection; time domain process; transient field; Giant magnetoresistive sensors; nondestructive evaluation; pulsed eddy current;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TMAG.2009.2032330

Filename

5276854