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Theory Of Thin-Skin Eddy-Current Interaction With Surface Cracks, Nicola Harfield, John R. Bowler

Nicola Bowler

Eddy-current non-destructive evaluation is commonly performed at relatively high frequencies at which the skin depths are significantly smaller than the dimensions of a typical crack. A thin-skin analysis of eddy currents is presented in which the electromagnetic fields on the crack faces are described in terms of a potential which obeys a two-dimensional Laplace equation. Solutions of this equation for defects in both magnetic and non-magnetic materials are determined by applying thin-skin boundary conditions at the crack perimeter. The impedance change of an eddy-current coil due to the defect is then calculated by numerical evaluation of one-dimensional integrals over the …