Design and Fabrication of Self-Sensing Magnetostrictive Transducer for Non-Destructive Evaluation

In this research a novel self-sensing transducer is presented. The guided wave generated by this transducer is propagated in the pipeline and the reflected wave indicates the place of the flaw. The ultrasound pulse is generated based on the Wiedemann effect and echo signal is detected based on the Villari effect. By combining Wiedeman and Villari effects and proposing a new configuration for the transducer, the signal to noise ratio will be improved and flaw location can be found with higher accuracy. In summary, to design the transducer with proper specifications, the pipeline material should be analyzed at first. After measuring the mechanical and magnetic properties of the pipeline and magnetostriction materials, the designed transducer will be numerically analyzed. By modeling the transducer in a finite element (FE) software, like ANSYS, the vibrational and magnetic behaviors of the transducer will be verified. Analyzing the results may needs some modifications. Finally, a prototype of transducer is fabricated and the data gathered by data acquisition system should be interpreted for both, defective and benchmark to find out the health monitoring criteria in pipelines.