High Sensitivity Electromagnetic Testing of Hi-Tech and Safety Critical Metal Components

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This 4 year PhD iCASE project will undertake research into new methods of inducing high frequency currents into metal components to test them for small surface defects and cracks (<0.5mm long) - beyond the limits of what is currently viable. The University of Warwick has developed some new instrumentation that is capable of inducing currents (eddy currents) in the surface of a metal sample such as titanium, at frequencies over 15MHz - far beyond what is available at the moment. We do this using specially designed coils that are positioned close to the sample, but do not touch the sample, and then using the magnetic field arising from these currents to determine if there are changes in the electromagnetic properties of the sample, that could be caused by material degradation or small cracks. The presence of even the smallest cracks on components such as jet engine turbine blades could be catastrophic due to the high stresses and temperatures that these components can be exposed to. This project will provide the PhD student the chance to apply and develop their knowledge of the underlying physics to a real world problem, working on equipment and analysis that will improve safety and produce some novel new measurement techniques.The project will work closely with academic and industrial members of the EPSRC funded Research Centre for NDE.