A Smart Eddy Current Sensor Dedicated to the Nondestructive Evaluation of Carbon Fibers Reinforced Polymers

Abstract

This paper propose a new concept of an eddy current (EC) multi-element sensor for the characterization of carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) to evaluate the orientations of plies in CFRP and the order of their stacking. The main advantage of the new sensors is the flexible parametrization by electronical switching that reduces the effort for mechanical manipulation. The sensor response was calculated and proved by 3D finite element (FE) modeling. This sensor is dedicated to nondestructive testing (NDT) and can be an alternative for conventional mechanical rotating and rectangular sensors.

Keywords

• multi-element sensor
• eddy current
• CFRP characterization
• nondestructive testing (NDT)
• electromagnetic field computation
• FEM modeling