Evaluation of Subsurface Cracks in Riveted Aluminum Joints Using Industrial Eddy Current Instrumentation

This paper concerns the efficient numerical modeling of subsurface flaws emanating from a fastener hole in riveted aluminum joints on the basis of eddy current (EC) signals measured with industrial instrumentation. Modeling of EC signals from modern industrial instrumentation is a difficult task because of the typical “complex” (in term of geometry and materials) configuration of the probes. The computational technique we applied is based on an integral formulation of the eddy current problem in the presence of magnetic (the core of the probe) materials. Measured and simulated eddy current signals due to the second-layer artificial flaws of various profiles are compared.