Study on the Structure and Composition of new Ferromagnetic Materials with an Automated System for Complex Non-destructive Testing

The paper presents the results of the study of the structure and composition of new ferromagnetic materials, performed with an automated system for complex non-destructive testing of the structure and mechanical properties of samples and articles of metal materials MULTITEST. It consists of several modular devices that measure one or two non-destructive information parameters based on methods with different physical fundamentals (magnetic, ultrasonic and thermoelectric). Three optimized modular devices of the system are presented: MULTITEST-MC010 for research of ferromagnetic materials with the methods for measuring the magnetic noise and the magnetoacoustic emission of Barkhausen, MULTITEST-CD010 for research of materials with the methods for measuring speed and attenuation of ultrasound and MULTITEST-TE010 for measuring the thermoelectric power in metallic materials. The main approaches for the optimization of the automated data processing from measurement/test and the adjustment of the modular instruments are presented, by applying the graphic program LabVIEW. The possibility for the application of these methods for complex non-destructive testing of the structure and composition in samples of sintered materials for permanent magnets, samples of amorphous alloys and samples of active cathode materials for application in electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EV/HEV) vehicles is shown. It has been proved that the non-destructive information parameters - magnetic noise voltage and magnetoacoustic emission voltage depend on the structure and composition of the studied amorphous alloys and cathode materials, and the non-destructive information parameters speed and attenuation of ultrasound in the controlled material depend on the structure and composition of the neodymium magnets. The non-destructive information parameter of the method for measuring the thermoelectric force - thermoelectric voltage can be used as an additional parameter in many cases in complex non-destructive testing - for example in amorphous alloys and permanent magnets.