Affiliations: [a] State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, Shaanxi ERC of NDT and Structural Integrity Evaluation, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Correspondence:
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Corresponding authors: Cuixiang Pei, State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, Shaanxi ERC of NDT and Structural Integrity Evaluation, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China. E-mail: pei.cx@mail.xjtu.edu.cn and Zhenmao Chen, State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, Shaanxi ERC of NDT and Structural Integrity Evaluation, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China. E-mail: chenzm@mail.xjtu.edu.cn
Abstract: In this paper, a novel Phased Array fully Flexible Rayleigh-wave EMAT (PAFR-EMAT) suitable for inspection of curved surface based on flexible coil bias field magnet EMAT is proposed. The PAFR-EMAT consists of a flexible racetrack coil generating long pulsed bias magnetic field instead of the conventional permanent magnets, and flexible meander coils triggered in sequence to induce transient eddy current for exciting enhanced Rayleigh wave of MHz frequency. Based on the Lorentz force mechanism, pulsed electromagnetic fields and the generated ultrasonic waves of the proposed new EMAT are studied through numerical simulation at first. Experiments are conducted then to check the practical performance of the PAFR-EMAT for pipe inspection. Results show that the PAFR-EMAT has good performance in Rayleigh wave generation for inspection of the curved surface of metallic pipe and is capable to detect surface crack of small depth.
