Reconstruction of stress corrosion cracks using signals of pulsed eddy current testing

Abstract

A scheme to apply signals of pulsed eddy current testing (PECT) to reconstruct a deep stress corrosion crack (SCC) is proposed on the basis of a multi-layer and multi-frequency reconstruction strategy. First, a numerical method is introduced to extract conventional eddy current testing (ECT) signals of different frequencies from the PECT responses at different scanning points, which are necessary for multi-frequency ECT inversion. Second, the conventional fast forward solver for ECT signal simulation is upgraded to calculate the single-frequency pickup signal of a magnetic field by introducing a strategy that employs a tiny search coil. Using the multiple-frequency ECT signals and the upgraded fast signal simulator, we reconstructed the shape profiles and conductivity of an SCC at different depths layer-by-layer with a hybrid inversion scheme of the conjugate gradient and particle swarm optimisation. Several modelled SCCs of rectangular or stepwise shape in an SUS304 plate are reconstructed from simulated PECT signals with artificial noise. The reconstruction results show better precision in crack depth than the conventional ECT inversion method, which demonstrates the validity and efficiency of the proposed PECT inversion scheme.