Development of eddy current probe for crack inspection of oil and gas pipelines

Crack inspection mechanism for oil and gas pipelines based on eddy current sensing technology was analyzed. Experimental system for crack detection was developed, and the probes with different structural parameters were developed and used for cracked specimens scanning. The results show that the height and number of turns of the toroidal excitation coil have a significant impact on the inspection capability of the probe, and reducing the height of the coil and increasing the number of turns were conducive to the improvement the crack inspection performance of the probes. Besides, the developed eddy current detection probe can achieve 1 mm wide crack inspection.