Mapping and Tracking Early Stage Damage for Structural Health Monitoring of Material Handling Equipment

It is imperative that catastrophic failures be prevented in critical load handling equipment, such as missile hoists. Improved NDE methods are required that can be rapidly applied in the field to assure integrity of structural components without requiring extensive training of field personnel. JENTEK’s Meandering Winding Magnetometer array (MWM®-Array) sensors have proven capabilities for detecting early stage fatigue damage and cracks in metallic components and the ability to produce highly repeatable, spatially registered digital images of material properties. MWM-Arrays are thin and flexible, conform to curved parts and parts with varying curvature, can be fabricated in a wide variety of shapes and sizes to enhance inspection of specific components and can be embedded for structural fatigue and stress monitoring. By making baseline scans of critical components and creating digital maps of material conditions, very small changes can be detected throughout the life of the steel components that can identify early stage fatigue damage, early stage fatigue cracks, results of an overload event, and changes in precursor conditions, such as residual stress state, that can identify areas of higher susceptibility to future damage. This proposal addresses the need to adapt and customize this technology for specific critical load handling equipment.