Practical evaluation of velocity effects on the magnetic flux leakage technique for storage tank inspection

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-80
Author(s):  
A L Pullen ◽  
P C Charlton ◽  
N R Pearson ◽  
N J Whitehead

Magnetic flux leakage (MFL) is a technique commonly used to inspect storage tank floors. This paper describes a practical evaluation of the effect of scanning velocity on defect detection in mild steel plates with thicknesses of 6 mm, 12 mm and 16 mm using a fixed permanent magnetic yoke. Each plate includes four semi-spherical defects ranging from 20% to 80% through-wall thickness. It was found that scanning velocity has a direct effect on defect characterisation due to the distorted magnetic field resulting from induced eddy currents that affect the MFL signal amplitude. This occurs when the inspection velocity is increased and a reduction in the MFL signal amplitudes is observed for far-surface defects. The opposite applies for the top surface, where an increase is seen for near-surface MFL amplitudes when there is insufficient flux saturating the inspection material due to the concentration of induced flux near the top surface. These findings suggest that procedures should be altered to minimise these effects based on inspection requirements. For thicker plates and when far-surface defects are of interest, inspection speeds should be reduced. If only near-surface defects are being considered then increased speeds can be used, provided that the sensor range is sufficient to cope with the increased signal amplitudes so that signal clipping does not become an issue.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 9489
Author(s):  
Yinliang Jia ◽  
Shicheng Zhang ◽  
Ping Wang ◽  
Kailun Ji

With the rapid development of the world’s railways, rail is vital to ensure the safety of rail transit. This article focuses on the magnetic flux leakage (MFL) non-destructive detection technology of the surface defects in railhead. A Multi-sensors method is proposed. The main sensor and four auxiliary sensors are arranged in the detection direction. Firstly, the root mean square (RMS) of the x-component of the main sensor signal is calculated. In the data more significant than the threshold, the defects are determined by the relative values of the sensors signal. The optimal distances among these sensors are calculated to the size of a defect and the lift-off. From the finite element simulation and physical experiments, it is shown that this method can effectively suppress vibration interference and improve the detection accuracy of defects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 1315-1323
Author(s):  
Ranran Huang ◽  
Hongmei Li ◽  
Mingyang Jiang ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
Chuntian Zhao

The defect in structures is the major risk to the structural integrity, thus to perform the defect detections and evaluations efficiently is critical in assuring the structural safety. Magnetic flux leakage testing (MFLT) is an important non-destructive testing (NDT) method. Due to its high testing sensitivity and simple operating procedure, it has been widely used in detecting surface and near-surface defects in ferromagnetic components. To improve the accuracy of defect detection, it is necessary to find a suitable source magnetization distribution around a defect, and furthermore, to correlate the defect with the magnetic leakage signals. In this study, a magnetic charge model is proposed, in which both volume- and surface- densities of magnetic charges around a defect are considered. Then, this model is used for the calculation of the magnetic leakage signals caused by a known complex V-shape defect for the verification purpose. The results from the simulation match very well with that from the experiment. It indicates potentials that the magnetic charge model and the associated approach can be applied in MFLT with improved accuracy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianbo Wu ◽  
Wenqiang Wu ◽  
Erlong Li ◽  
Yihua Kang

AbstractAs a promising non-destructive testing (NDT) method, magnetic flux leakage (MFL) testing has been widely used for steel structure inspection. However, MFL testing still faces a great challenge to detect inner defects. Existing MFL course researches mainly focus on surface-breaking defects while that of inner defects is overlooked. In the paper, MFL course of inner defects is investigated by building magnetic circuit models, performing numerical simulations, and conducting MFL experiments. It is found that the near-surface wall has an enhancing effect on the MFL course due to higher permeability of steel than that of air. Further, a high-sensitivity MFL testing method consisting of Helmholtz coil magnetization and induction coil with a high permeability core is proposed to increase the detectable depth of inner defects. Experimental results show that inner defects with buried depth up to 80.0 mm can be detected, suggesting that the proposed MFL method has the potential to detect deeply-buried defects and has a promising future in the field of NDT.


2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (6) ◽  
pp. 422-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Usarek ◽  
Marek Chmielewski ◽  
Leszek Piotrowski

Abstract The magnetic flux leakage (MFL) technique is extensively used for detection of flaws as well as for evaluation of their dimensions in ferromagnetic materials. However, proper analysis of the MFL signal is hindered by the MFL sensor velocity causing distortions of this signal. Traditionally measured components of the MFL signal are particularly sensitive to the scanning velocity. In this paper, an another signal – the gradient of the normal component of magnetic flux density – was proposed as it is less sensitive to the scanning velocity. Results obtained for scans of the steel plate with artificially manufactured flaws confirm this statement.


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