The Situation
In aviation, automotive, and nearly all other engineering
industries, "metal" used to be synonymous with "structural
material". Not anymore. Certainly the majority of all structural materials
utilized today are still comprised of metals, but glass-, carbon-, and metal-fiber
composite materials have gained an ever-growing and important place in industry.
Regardless of what structural material is being utilized, its quality has to be consistent
and well-documented. As the demand for quality materials and components constantly
increases, so does the necessity for quality documentation (i.e., certified
documentation). In this regard, documentation of material quality turns into a
market-regulating competition factor. Therefore, proficient, inexpensive, and
consistent systems for manual and/or automated testing and documentation of the quality of
a product are required to be competitive in industry.
Our Solution
The Fraunhofer-Institute for Nondestructive Testing (IZFP)
has developed a multi-frequency eddy current system to examine surface and sub- surface
areas of materials with suitable electrical conductive and magnetic properties. This
new instrument allows for inspection of a large variety of materials and provides
documentation of the inspection all in one unit. Metals, fiberglass, carbon-fiber
and metal-fiber composite materials can be evaluated for fiber separation, fiber content,
cracking, etc., and the inspection data and results are easily monitored and readily
available. Our instruments benefit from state-of-the-art modular technologies
for easy customization and operation. Simple, inexpensive models for relatively easy
inspections or complex, hi-tech models for more demanding inspection tasks can be
provided. In combination with the our software modules for data analysis and
documentation, the ECT instruments provide numerous analysis and data presentation
capabilities.
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WS98-EN™, complete multi-frequency
eddy current board for multi-channel operation with a multiple sensor and frequency
channels |
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