Study of the ability of MBN based NDT to distinguish high-performance martensitic steel grades

Abstract

The interest of non-destructive testing (NDT) in steel material characterization is growing especially for quality and life cycle control. The Magnetic Barkhausen Noise (MBN) analysis shows an extreme sensitivity to different parameters: steel grade, grain size, microstructure, magnetic domains wall structure, residual stress, surface condition, etc. It is very difficult to distinguish the individual effect of each parameter on the steel MBN signature. This paper attempts to address this problematic by fixing most of these parameters and varying only one parameter of interest (either austenitizing or tempering temperature) to assess the ability of the MBN technique to dissociate the mechanical properties of different martensitic steel grades. The MBN technique presented herein has proven to be able to distinguish high-performance martensitic steel grades when applied according to the proposed experimental protocol.