Non-Destructive Testing in real-time as a Predictive Maintenance strategy

Nondestructive evaluation is one of the most essential entities for Structural Health Monitoring. SHM as such is the intelligent combination of traditional surveillance of structure’s integrity with the novel, data-based, and automatized innovative technologies. It covers the areas as safety-critical as  aerospace, civil and mechanical engineering infrastructures

The process of implementing a damage identification strategy is what SHM does and Non-destructive testing is collecting and using the data on geometric properties of these structures (i.e changes to the internal conditionals of the material). The idea is to create a maintenance strategy based on the properly augmented assumptions.  A wide variety of highly effective local non-destructive evaluation tools are available for such monitoring.

Developing a maintenance strategy is precisely dependant on the inspection methods you use. Be it a concrete structure, composite material, or a chemically aggressive environment - if you want to increase security and the capacity of your application - you need to deeply consider what inspection method is best for you.

Surely Non-destructive testing is the Belle of the ball when it comes to maintenance and inspection strategies. This is the kind of testing that does not influence the physical properties of your application. There are many competing NDT methods in terms of cost, speed, accuracy in the detection of anomalies(size of an anomaly, location, the current normal state of the application, etc.), ability to detect anomalies in various environments.

The most commonly used NDT tests performed today are surface tests like dye penetrants or magnetic particle technologies. In power generation, oil and gas, manufacturing, and other industries, Eddy Current testing is a famous one as it is a rather accurate way to inspect tubing, bolt holes, bars, etc.(it is capable of detecting both surface and sub-surface defects). However, the currently famous methods also have some downsides to them according to scientific records and claims of professionals like;

• Coin tapping – Simple but time-consuming, predominantly not accurate.

• Vibration analysis – Real-time possibility, but it is hard to determine damage severity.

• Thermography – Non-contact, fast detection, needs a vibration-free environment.

• Optical – Limited by the information from the surface and/or dusty environment.

• Ultrasound – Time consuming, suffers attenuation, scattering, absorption.

• Radiography methods – High resolution, expensive, time-consuming.

• Eddy Current testing – Limited penetration depth, the surface must be accessible

Today, thanks to the developed understanding of magnetic principles there is a possibility of contactless, non-destructive sensing of several physical parameters(pressure, temperature, vibration, magnetic field, etc.) simultaneously. Moreover, using modern physical phenomena and processes, RVmagnetics made it possible to develop miniaturized sensors and read measured quantities from a greater distance.

Here’s How we do it:

The whole principle leys in the MicroWire - a miniaturized sensor of physical quantities(temp, pressure, magnetic field, etc.) is essentially a metallic alloy with a glass coating. It is thin and elastic like human hair. The dimensions and glass coating make it possible to integrate the microwire into/onto almost any material and gather local data. The measurements are not deformed or affected by harsh chemical or magnetic environments.

It is also important to mention that just from 1 gram of metallic alloy it is possible to produce 100.000 MicroWire sensors, which added to the facts mentioned above, makes the MicroWire cost-effective, fast, versatile, and precise tool for physical data mining. Add to this the fact that the MicroWire sensing system can gather data 10000x/second and you ensure Predictive Maintenance through real-time measurement. 

Now you know one more NDT inspection method to consider for the Maintenance Strategy of your application: contact us, click here to read more about the technology