Crack depth determination with inductive thermography

Abstract

Castings, forgings and other steel products are nowadays usually tested with magnetic particle inspection, in order to detect surface cracks. An alternative method is active thermography with inductive heating, which is quicker, it can be well automated and as in this paper presented, even the depth of a crack can be estimated. The induced eddy current, due to its very small penetration depth in ferro-magnetic materials, flows around a surface crack, heating this selectively. The surface temperature is recorded during and after the short inductive heating pulse with an infrared camera. Using Fourier transformation the whole IR image sequence is evaluated and the phase image is processed to detect surface cracks. The level and the local distribution of the phase around a crack correspond to its depth. Analytical calculations were used to model the signal distribution around cracks with different depth and a relationship has been derived between the depth of a crack and its phase value. Additionally, also the influence of the heating pulse duration has been investigated. Samples with artificial and with natural cracks have been tested. Results are presented comparing the calculated and measured phase values depending on the crack depth. Keywords: inductive heating, eddy current, infrared