Q NET Engineering GmbH

• Company Profile

  • About Us
  • Company Network
  • Strategic Partners
  • Our Clients
  • Jobs
  • Contact
  • Legal Details

• Business

  • Automotive Industry
  • Aerospace Industry
  • Metal Production and Metal Processing

• Testing Methods

  • Ultrasonic Testing
  • Eddy Current Testing
  • Case Depth Testing
  • Flux Leakage Testing
  • Material Characterization
  • EMAT Testing
  • Thermography

• Products

  • Testing Instruments

    • Case Depth Tester P3121
    • MikroMach ® Microstructure Tester
    • 3MA Microstructure Tester
    • WS 98 Eddy Current Board
    • NMR Inspect

  • Testing Systems

    • AnalysUS - Ultrasonic Testing System
    • WS98 Array

• Media

  • Publications
  • Information leaflets
  • Films

MikroMach ®
Electromagnetic Material Tester

Sitemap

The MikroMach tester is a compact and inexpensive device for non-destructive microstructure characterisation for manual or routine testing of magnetizable parts. Compared to the current standard, the electronic parts of the device have been reduced in size to a level that they now entirely fit into the sensor shell. The device is designed for the characterisation of hardness, case depth, nitrided case depth, residual stress, burning, proportions of different microstructures and further mechanical-technological characteristics of ferromagnetic materials.

Mobile testing device (left) - Probe and device form a unity (right)

The Method

The device uses the effect of the magnetic hysteresis that changes with the composition of the microstructure and the residual stress of the material. Alternating magnetic fields of amplitudes of up to 8 different frequencies are simultaneously launched into the test material. This so-called multi parameter measurement is designed for the collection of 40 input data sets and up to 4 parallel measuring processes at a time. The used testing methods include:

• Harmonic analysis
• Barkhausen noise analysis (BNA)
• Multi-frequency magnetic permeability
• Multi-frequency eddy current analysis

The multi-frequency Barkhausen noise analysis is used to measure the noise amplitudes at the magnetic zero point as well as the amplitude of the noise signal curve. The multi-frequency magnetic permeability method is used to measure the highest incremental permeability as well as the amplitude of the incremental permeability curve.
The harmonic analysis is designed for testing the magnetic field strengths with an hall-effect probe. The sinus wave of the alternating magnetic fields is distorted by magnetic hysteresis. The measurement of the amplitudes and harmonic waves equals the determination of the harmonic distortion.
The multi-frequency eddy current impedance method determines the imaginary and the real part of the impedance of each frequency. By linking and evaluating these test results, the characteristics of the microstructure can be determined.

Figure 2: Barkhausen noise profile curves

Calibration

Before use, the MikroMach® testing device has to be calibrated once. The calibration serves several purposes:

• selection of relevant test parameters
• determination of the correlation between the test and target parameters
• elimination of interference factors by combining several test parameters

The parameterisation and calibration of the testing system is done by Q NET. For this purpose, we collect up to 40 different input data sets per measuring process of one sample under production conditions. After that, the sample undergoes a metallographic examination. The results of the destructive testing will be compared to the collected data.

Modular Software

The modular software is highly user-friendly and provides many different options regarding the display of the results, the evaluation and the process integration. It also offers an enhanced functionality and is easy to be integrated into your work environment.

• Easy to learn
• German / English
• Password-protected
• Many additional modules available

Figure 3: Modular software

Advantages of the MikroMach ® Testing Device

• Probe and device form a unity
• USB connections to Windows computers
• Usage-specific modular pole shoe design
• Flexibly adjustable to different test parts due to modular software
• Easy to operate software

Device Description

• Testing method: multi-frequency Barkhausen noise analysis, multi-frequency permeability testing, harmonic analysis and multi-frequency eddy current impedance testing
• Magnetization frequency: 10-1000 Hz
• Magnetic field amplitude: 1-200 A/cm
• Eddy current frequency: 1-15 kHz (max. 24 kHz), multi-frequency testing up to 8 frequencies
• Barkhausen noise frequencies: 1-24 kHz, multi-frequency testing with up 8 frequencies
• Sampling rate: 2-3 evaluations/s (at 100 Hz)
• Modular computer software
• USB interface

Contact

Yvan Lejeune
Phone: +49 (0) 6 81/9 76 71 53
Fax: +49 (0) 6 81/9 76 71 58