A Magnetic Shielding-Type PEC Sensor With a Canister Structure and Magnetic Core

The pulsed eddy current (PEC) technique exhibits considerable benefits over conventional eddy current techniques. The structure and dimensional parameters of PEC sensors considerably influence the PEC systems. Conventional PEC sensors are susceptible to background noise of a magnetic excitation field. To strengthen the magnetic gathering ability and improve detection sensitivity, a magnetic shielding shell structure was introduced to PEC sensors. In this study, a novel canister structure and magnetic core-based PEC sensor with magnetic shielding was designed. Finite-element simulation and experimental study were performed subsequently to optimize the design. A 3-D finite-element simulation model was established according to the eddy current detection mechanism and electromagnetic shielding principle. The influence of the PEC sensor structure and size on its detection performance was observed. Next, a 2-D axis-symmetric model was established, and the size of this PEC sensor was optimized by using the orthogonal approach. The results revealed that the detection performance of this PEC sensor could be improved by incorporating an appropriate magnetic shielding mechanism and through the optimization of the sensor size. The research results show that compared with the PEC sensor without magnetic shield, the PEC sensor with magnetic shield developed in this article can obtain higher signal amplitude and can be better applied to surface and subsurface defect detection.