Non-destructive inspection method for heat exchangers using adaptive noise thresholding

摘要

A method of eddy current testing for flaws in a tube is provided that includes passing an eddy current probe through the tube and obtaining eddy current data for a number of positions along the tube; analyzing the eddy current data to generate background noise data for a number of positions along the tube, analyzing the eddy current data to generate extracted data for a number of positions along the tube; and determining whether a flaw of a particular category is present in the tube based on a set of one or more of rules applied to at least a portion of the extracted data, wherein at least one of the rules uses a particular part of the extracted data and employs a threshold that is a function a particular part of the background noise data that is associated with the particular part of the extracted data.