NON DESTRUCTIVE TESTING OF FRICTION STIR WELDING: COMPARISON OF PLANAR EDDY CURRENT PROBES
Abstract
Welding of aluminium alloys has undergone a significant development with the Friction Stir Welding (FSW) process. Quality assurance of welded structures is always an important issue for industrial applications and although the good quality of FSW joints, some defects may arise. These defects are difficult or even impossible to detect with conventional non destructive testing (NDT) techniques. This paper presents a detailed analysis about the performance of conventional NDT planar eddy current probes to detect FSW defects. The analysis is based in the impedance measurements of the probes in different standard conditions of lift-off and conductivity. The results show that these types of probes are not enough to deal with the specific FSW defects morphology. Therefore a new type of NDT eddy current probes is proposed and characterized. Comparison results show a higher sensitivity of the new probe.
Event details
- Event
- Exploring New Frontiers of Instrumentation and Methods for Electrical and Electronic Measurements
- Technical Committee
- TC4
- Place
- Florence, ITALY
- Time
- 22 September 2008 - 24 September 2008
- Website
- http://www.imeko2008.org/