Affiliations: [a] Center for Offshore Engineering and Safety Technology,
China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, Shandong, China | [b] Advanced Imaging and Measurement Laboratory, School of
Engineering, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Xiaokang Yin, Center for Offshore
Engineering and Safety Technology, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao
266580, Shandong, China. Tel.: +86 532 8698 3500 8416; Fax: +86 5328 6983 300;
E-mail: Xiaokang.yin@hotmail.com
Abstract: As a novel electromagnetic non-destructive evaluation (NDE)
technique, capacitive imaging (CI) has been successfully used on a various
types of materials, including concrete, glass/carbon fibre composite, steel,
etc. In this work, studies on the design principles for the CI probes were
presented. Firstly, measures for the evaluation of the CI probe performance are
presented. The concept of volume of influence is then raised, to evaluate the
imaging ability of a given CI probe. Examples of CI probe designs are then
provided, namely symmetric and concentric geometries. Design factors, such as
separation between electrodes, guard electrodes, and electrode shapes are also
discussed and examined experimentally. CI scans were performed on two typical
specimens, namely Perspex and aluminium, to evaluation the imaging performance
of CI probes with different geometries.
