Abstract: To get the information on cracks in metallic components by method of pulsed eddy current (PEC) is a hotspot in the electromagnetic nondestructive testing (NDT) field. In order to optimize the design of PEC, deeply understanding the principle of PEC and finding out its characteristics of crack testing are especially important. PEC is used to detect the cracks in metallic components. On the basis of analysis of the working principle of PEC, ANSYS simulation software is adopted to build three sets of simulation models with their pick-up coils in different placement directions, so as to find the rules that reflect the distribution of three-dimensional magnetic field, which contain information on cracks. Then the new eigenvalues which reflect the information on defect depth and length are proposed, coming to a conclusion that the magnetic field whose direction is perpendicular to the metallic plane or in parallel with the longer border of the defect can be used to measure defect depth and length. At last, the simulation result is verified by the experiment method, the agreement between theory and experiment shows that the obtained eigenvalues of defect are correct.

Key words: Cracks, Experimental research, Pulsed eddy current, Quantitative testing, Simulation analysis