[1A3] Hardware and software design for a battery-powered portable pulsed eddy current (PEC) system
L Xiong¹, Z Xia¹, R Huang¹, Z Chen¹, Y Shao¹, J Shen², A Peyton¹ and W Yin¹
¹University of Manchester, UK
²Guilin University of Technology, China
The design of a lightweight, portable battery-powered PEC system is in urgent need for the evaluation of corrosion in the oil, gas and power generation industry. In our design, an Arm Cortex microcontroller unit (MCU) is applied to generate an excitation signal, measure the magnetic field via a tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) sensor and control the measurement process. The hardware has been integrated into an instrument with a size of 21 cm × 18 cm × 18 cm. In terms of software, the graphical user interface (GUI) is implemented based on the Qt5 and it features intuitive interaction through a touchscreen to control various testing configurations and take magnetic field measurements. When operating with an extremely low frequency of 0.1 Hz, the system can detect thicknesses of 80 mm for aluminium and 25 mm for carbon steel. With a battery life of more than 8 h, the portable system has the potential to be used in the field to meet the demands of industry.
