Fast Magnetic Flux Leakage Signal Inversion for the Reconstruction of Arbitrary Defect Profiles in Steel Using Finite Elements

• Published in: IEEE transactions on magnetics Vol. 49; no. 1; pp. 506 - 516
• Main Authors: Priewald, Robin H., Magele, Christian, Ledger, Paul D., Pearson, Neil R., Mason, John S. D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.01.2013; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Arbitrary defect reconstruction; Computational modeling; Corrosion; Corrosion environments; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Exact sciences and technology; finite element method (FEM); Finite element methods; Geometry; inverse problem; Jacobian matrices; magnetic flux leakage (MFL); Materials science; Metals. Metallurgy; non destructive testing (NDT); Optimization; Other topics in materials science; Physics; Steel; steel corrosion sizing; Vectors; Magnetic flux; inverse problem; nondestructive testing (NDT); steel corrosion sizing; Nondestructive testing; Inversion; finite element method (FEM); Defects; Finite element method; magnetic flux leakage (MFL); Iron loss; Inverse problems; Corrosion; Modelling; Arbitrary defect reconstruction; Magnetic properties
• ISSN: 0018-9464; 1941-0069
• DOI: 10.1109/TMAG.2012.2208119

This paper proposes a fast and effective method for reconstructing arbitrary defect profiles in steel plates from magnetic flux leakage (MFL) measurements widely used in nondestructive testing (NDT) of oil storage tanks and pipelines. The inverse reconstruction problem is formulated based on a nonlinear forward model using the finite element method (FEM) and is implemented in 2-D. A Gauss-Newton optimization is applied to reconstruct the defect geometry, using efficiently calculated Jacobian information directly derived from the FEM system matrix.