A quasi-DC potential drop measurement system for materials testing
File(s)
Author(s)
Corcoran, J
Davies, CM
Cawley, P
Nagy, PB
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Potential drop measurements are well established for use in materials testing and are commonly used for crack growth and strain monitoring. Traditionally, the experimenter has a choice between employing direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC), both of which have strengths and limitations. DC measurements are afflicted by competing spurious DC signals and therefore require large measurement currents (10’s or 100’s of amps) to improve the signal to noise ratio, which in turn leads to significant resistive Joule heating. AC measurements have superior noise performance due to utilisation of phase-sensitive detection and a lower spectral noise density, but are subject to the skin-effect and are therefore not well suited to high-accuracy scientific studies of ferromagnetic materials. In this work a quasi-DC monitoring system is presented which uses very low frequency (0.3-30 Hz) current which combines the positive attributes of both DC and AC while mitigating the negatives. Bespoke equipment has been developed that is capable of low-noise measurements in the demanding quasi-DC regime. A creep crack growth test and fatigue test are used to compare noise performance and measurement power against alternative DCPD equipment. The combination of the quasi-DC methodology and the specially designed electronics yields exceptionally low-noise measurements using typically 100-400 mA; at 400mA the quasi-DC system achieves a 13-fold improvement in signal to noise ratio compared to a 25A DC system. The reduction in measurement current from 25A to 400mA represents a ~3900 fold reduction in measurement power, effectively eliminating resistive heating and enabling much simpler experimental arrangements.
Date Issued
2020-04-01
Date Acceptance
2019-03-18
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 2020, 69 (4), pp.1313-1326
ISSN
0018-9456
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Start Page
1313
End Page
1326
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement
Volume
69
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (E
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Grant Number
EP/K503733/1
EP/L022125/1
Subjects
0299 Other Physical Sciences
0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2019-04-02