Detection of Damage and Crack in Railhead by Using Eddy Current Testing

Eddy current testing is a nondestructive testing method, which is used to detect discontinuities and defects in conductive materials. Using this technique, two different types of artificial defects in a railhead were evaluated in order to analyze the relationship between different types of defects and eddy current signals, and to obtain data on the size of the rail surface defects and crack location. The actually used rail sample was also studied. Surface cracks and defects were clearly observed as amplitude and phase changes of detected signals. This study succeeds in quantitatively analyzing and discriminating the damage types.