Elucidation of magnetic flux leakage for welding defect detection at different magnetic field directions through alternating magnetic field measurement

Abstract

Alternating current field measurement (ACFM) is a technology for detecting magnetic flux leakage (MFL) using a magnetic sensor and is often used to detect welding defects. An alternating magnetic field was generated under the excitation of an alternating electric field. The magnetic field direction of an alternating magnetic field changes with time and the size and direction of the leakage magnetic field on the weldment also change periodically. In order to verify this rule, the distribution of the leakage magnetic field in different magnetisation directions was analysed through simulation and experiment. The simulation results show that when sinusoidal excitation is applied to the coil, the direction of magnetisation changes with time and the magnetic field density (B) gradually changes periodically on the weldment. This was verified through related experiments. When the surface of the weldment had welding defects, the dynamic magneto-optical image was captured in different magnetisation directions. Welding defects have different magneto-optical images in different frames, which can present more information for the same defect. In addition, in the experiment, the correlation between the grey-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) of magneto-optical images in different magnetisation directions and that of the leakage magnetic field in the corresponding direction was analysed. Simulations and experiments were performed on different types of welding defect. It was found that the trend of characteristics for the leakage magnetic fields was similar to that of the characteristics for the grey-level co-occurrence matrix of the magneto-optical images. The results show that the characteristics of the leakage magnetic field can reflect the texture features of the welding defect.