A Comparison of Millimeter Wave and Eddy Current Detection of Surface Breaking Defects in Conducting Materials
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Begun in 1973, the Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation (QNDE) is the premier international NDE meeting designed to provide an interface between research and early engineering through the presentation of current ideas and results focused on facilitating a rapid transfer to engineering development.
This site provides free, public access to papers presented at the annual QNDE conference between 1983 and 1999, and abstracts for papers presented at the conference since 2001.
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Abstract
The detection of surface breaking defects in conducting materials is an important aspect of nondestructive evaluation (NDE). Eddy current NDE methods have been used effectively for the detection of fatigue cracks and other surface breaking flaws in conducting materials [1], however, a detracting characteristic is that the eddy current transducer must be placed in close proximity to the test specimen. Since millimeter wave energy can propagate in air and does not require a couplant, millimeter wave NDE offers an alternative technique with the significant advantage of detection in a stand off mode of operation. Millimeter wave NDE has been shown to be effective at detecting small cracks [2–3], however, some methods under study require that the transducer be in close proximity with the specimen and thus suffer from the same disadvantages as eddy current techniques. This paper compares the detection capabilities of surface breaking flaws on conducting materials for millimeter wave NDE in the stand off mode and conventional eddy current NDE.