2018 IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical & Computer Engineering (CCECE)
Inspection of Aircraft Engine Components using
Induction Thermography
Marc Genest
Aerospace Research Centre
National Research Council
Canada,
Ottawa, Canada
marc.genest@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Abstract— Induction thermography technique is assessed
experimentally on aircraft engine parts with fatigue cracks using
a three-loop coil. Results show that induction thermography can
detect cracks in engine parts, with inspection time of less than 1 s.
Coating surface to increase the part emissivity improved the
signal to noise ratio but was not necessary for the crack
detection. Despite high local heat gradient resulting from the
parts’ edges, cracks were still detectable. This edge effect
introduced more challenges to detect short cracks. Relatively,
longer cracks were easier to detect. The optimal observation
time, in the experiments, was between 0.1 s and 0.25 s. Inspection
of the engine disc with complex geometry was feasible using the
induction thermography technique. However, in this case only
some of the cracks were detected. Similar findings were also
obtained from the 3D multiphysics finite element modelling.
Keywords—induction thermography, engine components, non-
destructive evaluation, multiphysics modelling
I. INTRODUCTION
Induction heating is the process of heating an electrically
conductive object by electromagnetic induction, where induced
currents are generated within the test piece and electrical
resistance leads to heating of the test piece. Induction
thermography is a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique
that uses induction heating for flaw detection in conductive
materials and has been used since the 1980s [1]. This technique
has potential to improve the inspection speed and ease the
visualization of flaw detection in complex geometries parts
with the aid of infrared (IR) cameras. IR cameras can
accurately detect real-time temperature profile on the test piece
surface and the presence of small temperature gradients caused
by flaws. Over the last decade, this non-destructive technique
has gained more and more interest and has been used on both
metallic and composite materials [2-6]. In the investigation
presented herein, induction thermography is applied to two
aircraft engine parts containing fatigue cracks. The first one is
an engine spacer with a fairly simple geometry, while the
second one is an engine disc that has a more complex
geometry. For the engine disc, numerical results obtained from
a multiphysics finite element model are presented in an attempt
978-1-5386-2410-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 Crown
Gang Li
Aerospace Research Centre
National Research Council
Canada,
Ottawa, Canada
gang.li@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
to verify and better understand the thermal gradient observed
experimentally.
II. THEORY AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
A. Theoretical Background
Mathematical equations describing the electromagnetic
phenomena involved in induction heating are given by the
Maxwell’s equations. According to Ampere’s law (last of
Maxwell's Equations), an alternating coil current flowing
through a wire or coil will produce an alternating magnetic
field of the same frequency as the source current. The
electromagnetic field’s strength depends on the coil current,
coil geometry, and distance from the coil. The alternating
magnetic field induces current in the conductive test piece
located near the coil. The induced current is in opposite
direction of the coil current. This induced current, if
sufficiently strong leads to heating of the part. The resulting
temperature gradient can be detected by an IR camera.
B. Experimental Setup
A commercial induction heating system was employed in
the experimental investigation. The system has an induction
heating control box that supplies up to 2.4 kW of power to the
work head. A copper coil excited by the work head is placed in
proximity to the test piece surface to create induction heating
of the test piece. Water is circulated through the coil at a flow
rate of 1.2 kg/min using a water-to-air heat exchanger during
the experiments to maintain the temperature of the coil
element. Thus, the heat transfer affecting the part is mainly
inductive and there is minimal radiation heat transfer from the
coil to the test piece. The coil copper pipe outer diameter was
6.35 mm and its wall thickness was 1.2 mm. The coil loop
outer diameter was 50 mm with a 3.18 mm spacing between
the adjacent turns. The 3-turn coil was located 10 mm away
from the engine parts as shown in Figs. 1 and 2. The
temperature distributions were captured by an IR camera,
which has a 320x240 pixel array, a maximum full frame rate of
60 Hz, and noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) of
~20 mK. A close-up lens was used with the IR camera to
 2018 IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical & Computer Engineering (CCECE)

increase the spatial resolution, which created a field of view of

approximately 32 mm x 24 mm. The IR camera aimed at the
area located inside the coil. Two aircraft engine components
made of nickel-based superalloy were investigated: an engine
spacer with 2 fatigue cracks (Fig. 1), and an aircraft 2nd stage
engine disc with fatigue cracks (Fig. 2).

III. RESULTS

A. Engine Spacer
The engine spacer was first inspected using the traditional
liquid penetrant inspection (LPI) technique. Two cracks were Fig. 2. Experimental setup used for induction thermography of engine disc
detected as shown in Fig. 3. The crack lengths over the flange
were 1.6 and 2.54 mm (0.063" and 0.100") and the length in It can also be seen from the IR images that the inner edge
the bore section were 2.64 and 2.16 mm (0.104" and 0.085"), of the disc (corner of the flange and bore) resulted in a higher
respectively. The induction thermography inspections were temperature. This higher temperature is the result of current
carried out using 40 and 100 A excitation currents, with a concentration. Depending on the part geometry and the flaw
maximum excitation duration of 4 s, which lead to an overall length this edge effect could make the flaw detection easier or
temperature increase of less than 2 degrees Celsius. Post- more challenging. In the case of the shorter crack (Fig. 4), the
processing analysis suggests that excite period could be hot spot generated by the flaw was located at the edge of the
decreased, as the flaws became visible after only 0.1 s flange. In this case, the flaw heat signature was weakened by
excitation time, as shown in Figs. 4 and 5. Longer heating time the edge effect, and thus impeded the detection. For the longer
could be detrimental, as the high local temperature caused by crack condition, there was a clear disruption of the edge effect
the flaws diffuses to surrounding regions. This heat diffusion heating, especially visible at time 0.1 s in Fig. 5, in addition to
reduced the signal to noise ratio and made the detection a hot spot at the crack tip which made it easier to detect.
challenging. While a 40 A current was sufficient to detect the
cracks, increasing the excitation current to a 100 A improved
the signal to noise ratio. Regardless of the excitation current
applied, the early observation time 0.1 to 0.25 s provided better
detection capability than longer observation time.
While the results presented in Figs. 4 and 5 were obtained
from experiments carried-out with a fixed setup, flaws could
also be detected when the coil was in motion. It was relatively 1 2
more challenging to detect the flaws with the moving coil, as
local heating started while the coil was still obstructing the
Fig. 3. Photograph of liquid penetrant inspection results of the engine spacer
field of view, and the flaw was not always in the IR camera showing 2 fatigue cracks.
sight line within the first 0.25 s. Flaws could be detected from
the uncoated part; while paint and other high emissivity coating
greatly enhanced the signal to noise ratio, and removed signal
artifacts caused by low emissivity and various surface features
present on the spacer.


(a) (b) (c)
Fig. 4. Infrared images of a 0.063” long crack at excitation time (a) 0.1s, (b)
0.2s, and (c) 0.5s using 40 A current.

Fig. 1. Experimental setup used for induction thermography of engine spacer

 2018 IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical & Computer Engineering (CCECE)
 
(a) (b) (c)
Fig. 5. Infrared images of a 0.100” long crack at excitation time (a) 0.1s, (b)
0.2s and (c) 0.5s, using a 100 A current.
B. Engine Disc
1) Experimental Results
The engine disc containing a few fatigue cracks was first
inspected by LPI. Those cracks are visible in the LPI results
presented in Fig. 6. Crack lengths at slot #1 were estimated to
be 2.45 and 4.5 mm, while crack lengths at slot #16 were
estimated at 2 and 4 mm. While cracks on slot #16 were
located on both sides of the fir-tree, cracks on slot #1 were only
located on one side of the fir-tree due to the process used to
generate the fatigue cracks. Example of infrared images
obtained are shown in Fig. 7 for a pristine slot, slot #1 and slot
#16. Fig. 8 shows an example of infrared images obtained over
time on slot #16. It is important to note that the inspections
were carried out without applying a high emissivity coating to
the part. It can be seen in Fig. 7a that induction consistently
heated up one side of the fir-tree, area circled in white in the
figure, while little temperature increase was observed on the
other side. It is believed that the interaction between the
complex part geometry and the electromagnetic field resulted
in a higher temperature field concentration on this side, while a
lesser field intensity reached the other side. Consequently, it
was insufficient to generate heat and limited the flaw detection
to only one side of the fir-tree. In addition, due to the nature of
the material and the part, cracks forming in an engine disc are
known to be very tight cracks. Previous results [7] suggested
that it is more difficult to detect tightly closed cracks than
wider cracks using induction thermography. Both cracks in slot
#1 were detected, while only the longer crack, located on the
high electromagnetic field side of the fir-tree was detected in
slot #16.
16
1 generated localized temperature gradients due to their
Fig. 6. Photograph of liquid penetrant inspection results of the engien disc
showing fatigue cracks at slot #1 (left) and slot #16 (right).
1
16

(a) (b) (c)
Fig. 7. Infrared images of (a) a pristine location, and flawed location (b) slot
#1 and (c) slot #16 at excitation time 0.5s, using a 200 A current.
16 16 16
(a) (b) (c)
Fig. 8. Infrared images of slot #16 at excitation time (a) 0.1s, (b) 0.2s and (c)
0.5s, using a 200 A current.
2) Finite Element Modeling
Finite element modeling using COMSOL Multiphysics
software version 5.1 was conducted to further investigate the
temperature gradient. This 3D finite element (FE) induction
heating model had four domains: air, engine disc, coil, and
water inside the coil pipe system. Two coupling multiphysics:
(i) magnetic field and (ii) heat transfer in solids were used in
the induction heating simulation. The electric power in the
magnetic field was setup through boundary conditions using
“Lumped Port” and “Impedance Boundary Condition”
provided by the software. The electrical current intensity was
supplied to one end section of the coil exterior boundaries via
the “Lumped Port” while the remaining of the coil exterior
boundaries were set to “Impedance Boundary Conditions”. The
initial ambient temperature was 23°C. To reduce the
computation time, only a section of the engine disc was
modeled covering the area of interest around a few fir-trees.
Two types of elements were used to mesh the model:
tetrahedral and triangular, as shown in Fig. 9. Finer mesh
elements were used at the fir-trees to capture the more subtle
electromagnetic interaction and temperature variation, while
coarser elements were used away from the area of interest.
An example of modeling results obtained for a 100 A current at
heating time 0.5 s is shown in Fig. 10. Similarly to the
experimental results, both pristine fir-trees and flawed ones
geometry, but more interesting was that only one side of the
fir-tree generated a local gradient. This could explain why one
of the cracks at slot #16 was not detected by the induction
thermography technique. It can also be seen in Fig. 10 that the
3 mm modeled crack disturbed the temperature distribution
compared to the pristine case, and thus should allow for
detection, as confirmed in the experimental results. Some
differences between the experimental and numerical results
 2018 IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical & Computer Engineering (CCECE)
need further investigations. In the experiment, the cracks led to
local heating, while in the model they appeared to mainly
disturb the temperature distribution without necessarily
generating the highest temperature point. Two potential
explanations are: 1) the crack location in the model might not
be exactly at the same location as in the experiments; and 2)
the angle of the fir-tree relative to the induction coil might
influence the peak temperature location.
It can also be noticed that the side of the fir-trees with local
temperature gradients in the model is actually opposite to that
obtained in the experiments. This could potential be the results
of small differences in the coil location between the
experiments and model. Further investigation is needed to fully
understand the various phenomena for using induction
thermography technique on complex geometry parts and
explain the observed differences between the model and
experiments.
(a) (b)
Fig. 9. A three-dimensional (3D) FE model for a disc section induced by a
three-loop coil system.
(a) (b)
Fig. 10. Modelling results at heating time 0.5 s a) no crack; b) 3 mm crack
IV. CONCLUSIONS
It was shown that the induction thermography technique
can be used to detect cracks in engine components. Even
though, the cracks detected were between 1.6 and 4.5 mm,
smaller or shorter cracks may be detectable by increasing the
spatial resolutions. Through all the experimental scenarios,
early heating time period, 0.1 to 0.25 s, eased the flaw
detection, which would make induction thermography a rapid
and practical inspection technique. Actual crack geometry,
location and orientation, as well as the part geometry are
challenging elements for achieving reliable detections. A clear
path from the IR camera to the flaw should be kept for getting
good detections. For instance, it would be possible to inspect
the bore side of the engine spacer presented, while it would
not be possible to easily inspect a small diameter bolt hole.
Current assessment results are promising, further investigation
will be carried out using numerical modelling approach to have
a better understanding of the electromagnetic field involved in
the complex geometry and explain why not all the flaws
resulted in localized high temperatures gradient and why only
one side of the fir-trees had higher temperature magnitude than
the other side.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Michael R. Brothers for
performing the LPI inspection, and Dr. Scott Yandt and
Dr. Catalin Mandache for technical discussions.
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