Stainless Steel Weld Defect Detection Using Pulsed Inductive Thermography

Stainless steel is widely used in many important industries. Stainless steel weld, which is a weak part of the structure, plays a key role in structure integrity. To evaluate the reliability of the structure, this paper proposed a nondestructive testing technique, i.e., pulsed inductive thermography (PIT), to detect defects that are concealed in stainless steel welds. The theory of stainless steel weld defect detection is described, and then, a series of verified experiments are conducted to detect various stainless steel weld defects. The independent component analysis (ICA) is also utilized to remove the influence of weld inhomogeneity and enhance the defect information. The experiments verify that, combined with ICA, the PIT can picture stainless steel weld defects.