Detection of the Subsurface Cracks in a Stainless Steel Plate Using Pulsed Eddy Current

The nondestructive method to detect subsurface defects is limited because conventional eddy current are concentrated near to the surfaces adjacent to the excitation coil. The PEC technique enables detection of cracks buried deeper under the surface with relatively small current density. In the present study, an attempt has been made to investigate detection of subsurface cracks using a specially designed double-D differential probe. The tested sample is a SS304 with a thickness of 5 mm; small EDM notches were machined in the test sample at different depths from the surface to simulate the sub surface cracks in a pipe. The designed PEC probe has two excitation coils and two detecting Hall-sensors. The difference between two sensors is the resultant PEC signal. The cracks under the surface were detected using peak amplitude of the detected pulse; in addition, for a clear understanding of the crack depth, the Fourier transform is applied. In time domain, the peak amplitude of the detected pulse is decreased, and in the frequency domain, the magnitude of the lower frequency component has been increased with an increase in the crack depth. The experimental results have indicated that the proposed differential probe has the potential to detect the sub surface cracks in a stainless steel structure.