A Sensitivity Mapping Technique for Tensile Force and Case Depth Characterization Based on Magnetic Minor Hysteresis Loops

In the nondestructive testing and evaluation area,magnetic major hysteresis loop measurement technology are widely applied for ferromagnetic material evaluation.However the characterization ability of major hysteresis loop measurement technology greatly varies as the evaluated target properties.To solve this limitation,magnetic minor hysteresis loops,which reflect the responses of ferromagnetic material magnetization in a systematic way,is recommend.Inspired by plenty of information carried by the minor loops,the sensitivity mapping technique was developed to achieve the highest sensitivity of minor-loop parameters to the nondestructively evaluated targets.In this study,for the first time,the sensitivity mapping technique is used to measure the tensile force in a steel strand and evaluate the effective case depth in induction-hardened steel rods.The method and procedures for the sensitivity mapping technique are given before experimental detection.The obtained experimental results indicate that the linear correlation between the induced voltage(or the magnetic induction intensity)and the tensile force(or effective case depth)exists at most of the locations in the cluster of minor loops.The obtained sensitivity maps can be used to optimize the applied magnetic field(or excitation current)and the analyzed locations at the minor loops for achieving the highest sensitivity.For the purpose of tensile force measurement,it is suggested that the strand should be firstly magnetized to the near-saturation state and then restored to the remanent state.In this way,the highest sensitivity is obtained as about 15.26 mV/kN.As for the induction-hardened steel rods,the highest sensitivity of magnetic induction intensity to the effective case depth occurs under low magnetic field conditions and the absolute value of the highest sensitivity is about 0.1110 T/mm.This indicates that if the highest sensitivity is required in the case depth evaluation,the induction-hardened steel rods are only required to be weakly magnetized.The proposed sensitivity mapping technique shows the good performance in the high-sensitivity evaluation of tensile force and case depth in ferromagnetic materials and its application scope can be extended to other nondestructive detection fields.