Study on characteristics of eddy current array coil operated in transmit-receive mode and surface inspection using this probe

Eddy current array (ECA) technology provides the ability to electronically scan without mechanical scanning for a footprint of probe that consists of several eddy current coils arranged side-by-side and two dimensionally. Compared to single-coil eddy current technology, the ECA technology has a higher inspection speed and reliability because a large area can be covered in a single-probe pass and the obtained images can facilitate data interpretation. In this study, we developed an eddy current array probe with 2×16 coil arrays and a multiplexer that can select transmit-receive coils sequentially and operate in transmit-receive mode. Surface inspection was performed using this probe for specimens that had various flaws and the characteristics of transmit-receive mode ECA technology was studied through an analysis of the obtained eddy current signals and C-scan images