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Electromagnetic Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation: 2nd Edition
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Electromagnetic Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation: 2nd Edition

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Fault Diagnosis & Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 May 2026 | Viewed by 1897

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Yong Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, Shaanxi Engineering Research Centre of NDT and Structural Integrity Evaluation, School of Aerospace Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Interests: electromagnetic non-destructive testing and evaluation; forward modelling and inversion for defect reconstruction; microwave reflectometry for imaging, characterisation and evaluation of structural defects; 3D magnetic field sensing and gradient field measurement; image/signal processing and feature extraction techniques
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Yang Fang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, Shaanxi Engineering Research Centre of NDT and Structural Integrity Evaluation, School of Aerospace Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Interests: electromagnetic nondestructive testing and quantitative evaluation; electromagnetic scattering property measurement and imaging diagnostics; electromagnetic scattering/inverse scattering solving; microwave scattering/inverse scattering imaging; microwave sensor design; signal and image processing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Due to the need to avoid structural failure and incidents, the safety of engineering structures has received much attention worldwide. There is high demand for non-destructive approaches to monitoring, inspecting and evaluating the integrity of mechanical structures, such as oil/gas pipelines, fuel tanks, and aero-engines, during their fabrication/construction and in-service operations before catastrophic accidents occur.

Hitherto, electromagnetic non-destructive testing and evaluation (NDT&E) techniques, such as eddy current testing and magnetic flux leakage testing, have been used in the detection, characterisation and assessment of critical flaws (Stress Corrosion Cracks, Flow-Accelerated Corrosion, Liquid Droplet Impingement Erosion, etc.), which threaten structural integrity. However, as none of these techniques are universal, none be considered skeleton keys for the NDT&E of in-service structures. In view of this, more and more advanced electromagnetic non-destructive testing methods have been proposed that are complementary to current techniques.

We invite researchers to contribute reviews and original articles focusing on electromagnetic non-destructive testing and the evaluation of critical components and structures in engineering fields, including aerospace, energy, chemical and transportation engineering. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Electromagnetic non-destructive testing and evaluation;
  • Eddy current testing;
  • Eddy current thermography;
  • Electromagnetic acoustic transduction;
  • Microwave and millimetre-wave testing;
  • Magnetism-based testing (Barkhausen noise analysis, Magnetic incremental permeability, Magnetic memory testing, etc.);
  • Electromagnetic field sensing;
  • Forward and inverse modelling of electromagnetic non-destructive testing;
  • Defect imaging, assessment and reconstruction;
  • Defect characterisation and identification;
  • Material characterisation and classification.

Prof. Dr. Yong Li
Dr. Yang Fang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • electromagnetic non-destructive testing
  • eddy current testing
  • magnetic flux leakage testing
  • eddy current thermography
  • electromagnetic acoustic transduction
  • microwave and millimetre-wave testing

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

41 pages, 25035 KB  
Article
Evolution Mechanism and High-Precision Quantitative Identification of MFL Signals from Defects Under Supersaturated Magnetization Conditions
by Huiqi Zou, Jiuxin Wang, Qi Dong, Dingze Lu, Yurong Du and Yaoheng Su
Sensors 2026, 26(10), 3092; https://doi.org/10.3390/s26103092 - 13 May 2026
Viewed by 385
Abstract
Magnetic flux leakage (MFL) testing is a critical non-destructive testing (NDT) method for ensuring the safety of ferromagnetic storage and transportation equipment. However, existing research has predominantly focused on weak or saturated magnetization states, leaving the characteristic laws and physical mechanisms of defect [...] Read more.
Magnetic flux leakage (MFL) testing is a critical non-destructive testing (NDT) method for ensuring the safety of ferromagnetic storage and transportation equipment. However, existing research has predominantly focused on weak or saturated magnetization states, leaving the characteristic laws and physical mechanisms of defect signals under supersaturated magnetization conditions unclear. To address this gap, this paper systematically investigates the MFL signal evolution mechanism and develops a high-precision quantitative identification method for defects under supersaturated magnetization conditions through finite element simulation, theoretical modeling, and experimental validation. First, a three-dimensional (3D) finite element model for MFL testing is established using COMSOL Multiphysics. The regulatory effects of key parameters—sensor lift-off value, defect burial depth, length, and depth—on the peak values and distribution characteristics of axial and radial MFL signals are revealed, a signal peak characterization model for each parameter and their adjusted R2 is obtained via fitting, and the detection capability of the detector for defects with different shapes is simultaneously verified. Furthermore, actual detection is conducted on three crack defects of different sizes, and the analysis results indicate that the characterization models of each parameter obtained from the simulation exhibit high accuracy. The results show that MFL signal intensity under supersaturated magnetization conditions is significantly enhanced compared to that under saturated magnetization conditions. Furthermore, to improve defect length measurement accuracy, a signal correction method based on the midpoint of extreme values of the second derivative of axial signals is proposed. By compensating for peak offsets caused by factors like magnetic field diffusion, this method reduces the maximum defect length identification error from 14.25% (pre-correction) to below 0.3%. This study elucidates the coupling influence mechanism of multi-physical parameters on MFL signals under supersaturated magnetization conditions. The proposed high-precision signal correction method provides a novel theoretical basis and technical approach for the accurate quantification and inversion of defects in complex operating conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electromagnetic Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation: 2nd Edition)
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23 pages, 13656 KB  
Article
Detection of Small Debonding Defects in Metal–Rubber Bonded Structures Using an Enhanced EMAT and Multi-Feature Fusion Imaging
by Yang Fang, Xiaokai Wang, Yinqiang Qu, Hongen Chen and Zhenmao Chen
Sensors 2026, 26(9), 2617; https://doi.org/10.3390/s26092617 - 23 Apr 2026
Viewed by 636
Abstract
To improve the low sensitivity of electromagnetic acoustic testing (EMAT) to micro-debonding defects in metal–rubber bonded structures, this study proposes a detection framework combining a magnetic-field-enhanced focusing EMAT with entropy-weighted multi-feature fusion imaging. First, a Halbach-type focusing magnet was designed and evaluated through [...] Read more.
To improve the low sensitivity of electromagnetic acoustic testing (EMAT) to micro-debonding defects in metal–rubber bonded structures, this study proposes a detection framework combining a magnetic-field-enhanced focusing EMAT with entropy-weighted multi-feature fusion imaging. First, a Halbach-type focusing magnet was designed and evaluated through finite element simulations, showing a substantial enhancement of the effective bias magnetic field in the working region. Then, three complementary echo features, namely amplitude (AMP), time-domain integral (TDI), and power spectral density (PSD), were extracted from the acquired resonance signals and integrated using an adaptive entropy-weighted fusion strategy. Comparative and ablation analyses were further conducted to distinguish the respective contributions of probe enhancement and feature fusion, and to compare entropy-weighted fusion with single-feature imaging and equal-weight fusion. The results indicate that the focused probe mainly improves the defect-response strength at the hardware level, whereas feature fusion mainly improves image contrast, background suppression, and segmentation consistency at the image level. Among the compared methods and under the present experimental conditions, entropy-weighted fusion provides the best overall imaging performance. Under the present experimental conditions, the proposed framework enables reliable detection of 5 mm debonding defects in aluminum-alloy–rubber bonded specimens and 10 mm debonding defects in titanium-alloy–rubber bonded specimens. These results suggest that the combined use of magnetic-field focusing and adaptive multi-feature fusion is a promising approach for the detection and quantitative characterization of micro-debonding defects in metal–rubber bonded structures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electromagnetic Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation: 2nd Edition)
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15 pages, 3238 KB  
Article
Enhanced Electromagnetic Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement with Adaptive Denoising and BVAR Spectral Extrapolation
by Lijun Ma, Xiaoqiang Guo, Shijian Zhou, Xiongbing Li and Xueming Ouyang
Sensors 2026, 26(1), 216; https://doi.org/10.3390/s26010216 - 29 Dec 2025
Viewed by 474
Abstract
Electromagnetic ultrasonic testing technology, owing to its couplant-free, high-temperature-resistant, and non-contact characteristics, exhibits unique advantages for thickness measurement in harsh industrial environments. However, its accuracy is fundamentally limited by inherent constraints in signal bandwidth and low signal-to-noise ratio. To address these challenges, this [...] Read more.
Electromagnetic ultrasonic testing technology, owing to its couplant-free, high-temperature-resistant, and non-contact characteristics, exhibits unique advantages for thickness measurement in harsh industrial environments. However, its accuracy is fundamentally limited by inherent constraints in signal bandwidth and low signal-to-noise ratio. To address these challenges, this work proposes an electromagnetic ultrasonic thickness measurement method that integrates Adaptive Denoising with Bayesian Vector Autoregressive (AD-BVAR) spectral extrapolation. The approach employs Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and automatically determines the optimal parameters for Variational Mode Decomposition (VMD), followed by integration with Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to achieve the adaptive denoising of signals. Subsequently, the BVAR model incorporating prior constraints performs robust extrapolation of the effective frequency band spectrum, ultimately achieving high measurement accuracy signal reconstruction. The experimental results demonstrate that on step blocks with thicknesses of 3 mm and 12.5 mm, the proposed method achieved significantly reduced error rates of 0.267% and 0.240%, respectively. This performance markedly surpasses that of the conventional Autoregressive (AR) method, which yielded errors of 0.767% and 0.560% under identical conditions, while maintaining stable performance across different thicknesses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electromagnetic Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation: 2nd Edition)
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