Biblio

Tensile residual stresses combined with an applied tensile stress can reduce the reliability of steel components. Nondestructive evaluation of residual stress is thus important to avoid unintended fatigue or cracking. Because magnetic hysteresis properties of ferromagnetic materials are sensitive to stress, nondestructive evaluation of residual stress through magnetic properties can be expected. The spatial mapping of local magnetic hysteresis properties becomes possible by using the acoustically stimulated electromagnetic (ASEM) method and the tensile stress dependence of the hysteresis properties has been investigated in steel. It is found that the coercivity Hc and the remanent magnetization signal Vr monotonically decrease with increasing the tensile stress. In this work, we verified the detection of residual stresses through the ASEM response in a welded steel plate. Tensile stresses are intentionally introduced on the opposite side of the partially welded face by controlling welding temperatures. We found that Hc and Vr clearly decrease in the welded region, suggesting that the presence of tensile residual stresses is well detected by the hysteresis parameters.

According to the technical difficulties of the air-coupled piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer, 1-3 type piezoelectric composites and double matching layers structure are adopted in order to solve the acoustic impedance mismatch at the interface between the piezoelectric materials and air. The optimal design of the matching layer thickness for double matching layers structure air-coupled ultrasonic transducer is also completed through experiments. Based on this, 440 kHz flat-plate and focused air-coupled piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer are designed, fabricated and characterized. Finally, surface cracks are detected using the focused air-coupled piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer.