Detection and measurement of surface cracks in ferromagnetic materials using eddy current testing

Eddy current testing is used to detect and quantify defects in electric conductive materials. Defects investigated are specifically mechanical, chemical and microstructural heterogeneities. In this scope, artificial defects simulating superficial cracks have been achieved in order to establish an eventual relationship between the orientation, the shape and the size of the defect in one hand, and the signature that it generates in the impedance plane on the other hand. We determine in the first stage the operating conditions for the minimization of all signals that may perturb the crack signal such as the background one. We have been able to detect easily a surface crack on ferromagnetic steel in a large range of the frequency. Curves allowing the discrimination between signals corresponding to the presence of cracks and those corresponding to a lift-off have been established. The limit depth has as well been determined and we found that this limit has no relationship with the depth of penetration of the eddy current. The operative parameters such as the diameter and the working mode of the probe, the excitation frequency and the setting of the measurement equipment have been optimized for the testing of the quality and the reliability of critical ferromagnetic steel parts.