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A contactless method to measure the electrical conductivity

Conference Paper · August 2017

DOI: 10.1109/CCSSE.2017.8087946

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 2017 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Control Science and Systems Engineering
A Contactless Method to Measure the Electrical Conductivity
D. F. He
Research Center for Structural Materials
National Institute for Materials Science
Tsukuba, Japan
e-mail: he.dongfeng@nims.go.jp
Abstract—Using eddy current method, we developed a simple
system to measure the electrical conductivity of material
contactlessly. Three coils were used in this method. One coil
was used to produce the excitation magnetic field. The other
two coils were used to compose the differential detection coil to
detect the magnetic field produced by the eddy current. Using
this method, we evaluated the electrical conductivity of copper
alloy specimens with different fatigue testing conditions and
found that the electrical conductivity of copper alloy had some
relation with the damage of copper alloy. In the future, we will
also use this method to measure the conductivity of the
graphene composite film on aluminum foil.
Keywords-eddy current; electrical conductivity; copper alloy
I. INTRODUCTION
Electrical conductivity is an important parameter of
various materials. It is not only used to characterize the
electronic materials, such as semiconductors; but also used to
evaluate mechanical materials, such as steel alloy, copper
alloy and titanium alloy; because the electrical conductivities
of the alloys may have relation with the mechanical
properties and the degradation of the alloys.
Four-point-probe method is the most commonly used
conventional method to measure the electrical conductivity
due to its cost effectiveness [1], [2]. However, the surface of
the sample (especially for the film samples) can be damaged
or contaminated by mechanical contact with the probes of
four-point-probe method; and standard sample should be
prepared to quantitatively determine the electrical
conductivity.
To overcome the problem of four-point-probe method,
contactless measurement techniques are developed, which
offer fast and non-destructive ways to measure the electrical
conductivity. Most contactless measuring methods are based
on the interaction of an electromagnetic field with the sample
under test. Capacitive techniques, eddy current techniques,
and microwave techniques have been developed for the
contactless measurement of electrical conductivities.
For the capacitive technique, it is frequently used to
measure the samples with lower electrical conductivities [3],
[4]. It is composed of an air capacitor containing the sample
sheet. The Q-factor approaches minima at certain frequencies
(maximum loss frequencies) that depend on the resistivity of
the sample. From the frequency, the electrical conductivity
of the sample can be measured.
978-1-5386-0482-3/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
K. Zhang, J. Tang
Center for Green Research on Energy and
Environmental Materials
National Institute for Materials Science
Tsukuba, Japan
For the eddy current method, it measures small
impedance change of an inductive coil, when it is placed in
close to a sample [5]-[7] and eddy current is induced in the
sample. The eddy current method can be used to measure the
electrical conductivities of semiconductors and good
conductors.
Microwave method is developed to measure the electrical
conductivity of silicon wafers [8], [9]. For the sample with
different conductivities, the reflection coefficient of the
microwave signal is different and electrical conductivity can
be determined.
Due to its high temperature performances, Cu-Cr-Zr
copper alloy is normally used to construct the inner wall of
the combustion chamber for liquid rocket engine. It has high
electrical conductivity of about 5107 S/m. We would like to
develop a method to evaluate its mechanical properties
nondestructively by measuring its electrical conductivity. For
this purpose, we developed a simple contactless technique to
measure the conductivity of copper alloy using eddy current
method and a differential detection technique was used to
reduce the influence of environmental interference.
II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
R C
AMP
D
L3
Vo
Signal AMP
generator L1
D
L2
AMP
R
Sample C
Figure 1. Experimental setup of contactless conductivity measurement
using eddy current method.
Fig. 1 shows the experimental setup. When alternating
current (AC) was applied to the excitation coil L1, a
changing magnetic field was produced and eddy current was
induced in the sample. Coil L2 and coil L3 were detection
coils. Because coil L2 was close to the sample, L2 detected
the field produced by the eddy current and the background
field produced by the excitation coil L1. Because coil L3 was
far from the sample, it only detected the background field
305
produced by the coil L1. Diode D, resistor R and capacitor C If the frequency  is high enough, and LS>>RS, then we
were used to do demodulation to get the amplitude of the have:
signal. After a differential amplifier, the output signal Vo was
proportional to the field produced by the eddy current.
 2

 I S  MI a 1  RS
 
LS  2 2 LS
2 


LS/RS is equal to cot, where  is the phase signal, and

can be expressed [12]:

 LS  b  a r 

RS 

   1 
f

Figure 2. Equivalent circuit of eddy current. where,  is the penetration depth of eddy current, r is the
radius of the excitation coil, f is the frequency,  is the
The mathematic model of eddy current testing consists of permeability of the sample,  is the conductivity of the
the set of Maxwell’s equations [10]. It is difficult to get the sample, a and b are constants. If the frequency is high
direct solving result of Maxwell’s equations with a formula enough,  << r. From formula (6), we have:
expression. Normally simulation or numerical calculation of
dyadic Green’s function is used [11], but the physical
 RS    
meaning of numerical calculation is not so clear. We will 
give a simple analyzing of the eddy current signal. Fig. 2 LS b  ar ar
shows the equivalent circuit of eddy current method. The
eddy current can be thought of an inductance LS in series Using formula (5) and formula (8), we can get:
with a resistor RS.
The applied AC current ia flowing in the excitation coil MI a  2 
can be expressed as: IS  1   (9)
LS  2a 2 r 2 
 ia  I a e j t  For high frequency and small range of conductivity
measurement, LS is mainly determined by the coil
where, Ia is the amplitude of the AC current and =2f is the configuration and can be thought as a constant. The output
frequency. In Fig. 2, LS and RS are the equivalent inductance signal VO is proportional to the amplitude of the eddy current.
and equivalent resistance of the eddy current.  is the flux, Using formula (9) and formula (7), then we have following
which is produced by the excitation coil. If the mutual equations:
inductance between the excitation coil and LS is M, the
induced voltage VS and the eddy current iS flowing in the k2
conductive sample can be expressed as:  VO  k1   k1  k 2  

d d MI 
 VS      MI a je j t   is the resistivity of the sample. Formula (10) is valid for
dt dt good conductor when the excitation frequency is high
enough. In this case, the penetration depth is much smaller
 iS  VS  MI a je j t  than the radius of the excitation coil.

jLS  RS jLS  RS III. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
All the coils, including the excitation coil and the two
Then, we can get the amplitude IS of the eddy current.
detection coils in Fig. 1 were winded using 0.1 mm copper
wire; and all the coils were 20 turns with the diameter of
 I  MI a MI a  about 2.5 mm. The gain of the amplifier was 20 dB. The
S 
 LS  RS
2 2 2
RS
2 resistor R and capacitor C for the demodulation were 10 k
LS 1  and 10 nF respectively. Because the resonant circuit was not
 2 LS 2 used for the detection coil, wide operating frequency was

306
possible, from 50 kHz to 2MHz. In out experiments, we used Table II shows the samples with different fatigue testing
the frequency of about 200 kHz. conditions.
We had three standard samples with the electrical
conductivities of 2.038107 S/m, 3.439107 S/m and
4.856107 S/m respectively. For the sample with the
electrical conductivity of 3.439107 S/m, using formula (7), 6mm
we could estimate the penetration depth was about 0.15 mm,
which was much smaller than the radius of the excitation coil 8mm
(1.25 mm); therefore, formula (10) was valid for our P2
experimental conditions. Table I shows the signals for the AR 10mm
samples. P1
Fig. 3 shows the relation of the signal with the resistivity
of the samples. We could see that they had good linear
relation. This result proved that formula (19) was valid for 10mm
our experimental conditions. We can use this relation to
calculate the electrical conductivity of sample from the
Figure 4. Sample of Cu-Cr-Zr copper alloy put in a sample holder.
output signal amplitude. Using this method, we evaluated the
electrical conductivity of copper alloy specimens under
different fatigue testing conditions. TABLE II. COPPER ALLOY SAMPLES WITH DIFFERENT FATIGUE
TESTING
Number Testing Temp. Stress Cycle Time
of samples (C) (MPa) No. (s)

CUS-1 AR -- -- --

CUS-2 Creep 480 160 -- 60000

Creep
CUS-3 480 160 20 8000
Fatigue
Creep
CUS-4 530 160 15 6000
Fatigue
Creep
CUS-5 430 160 50 22000
Fatigue
Creep
Fatigue
CUS-6 480 160 31 12400
Keep
Figure 3. Signal amplitudes for the standard samples with different 50s/cycle
resistivites.
The sample of CUS-1 was an as received (AR) sample
Fig. 4 shows the sample of Cu-Cr-Zr copper alloy. It was without creep/fatigue testing. The sample of CUS-2 was only
cut from a cylinder type specimen after creep and fatigue
done creep testing at the temperature of 480 C with the
testing. The samples were put into nonconductive holders.
stress of 160 Mpa. The time till broken was about 60000
The surfaces of the samples were polished to reduce the
second. The samples of CUS-3, CUS-4, CUS-5, CUS-6 were
difference of the surface conditions. Using the electrical
done creep fatigue testing with different testing conditions.
conductivity measurement system, we measured the
For different samples, the cycle numbers and the time till
conductivities of point P1 and point P2, which were 5 mm
broken were different. For each sample, the electrical
from the two ends of the specimen respectively. P1 was close
conductivities of the aging end (P1) and the broken end (P2)
to the aging end and P2 was close to the broken end.
were measured. Table III shows the results.
TABLE I. SIGNAL OF STANDARD SAMPLES WITH DIFFERENT For the sample CUS-1, it was an as-received sample
CONDUCTIVITIES without creep testing, but the electrical conductivity at P2
Number of Conductivity Resistivity Signal
was smaller than that at P1, which was caused by the edge
effect, the diameter of P2 end was smaller than that of the P1
samples (107 S/m) (10-8 m) (V)
end (Fig. 4). For different samples, the conductivities of P1
#1 2.038 4.907 0.1324 and P2 were different. We used a parameter of (1-2)/1 to
#2 3.439 2.908 0.1448 express the change of the conductivity, where, 1 was the
conductivity at P1 and 2 was the conductivity at P2. The
#2 4.856 2.059 0.1504
calculation results of (1-2)/1 for different samples were
shown in Table III.

307
 TABLE III. ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITIES AND LMP VALUES OF IV. SUMMERY
COPPER ALLOY SAMPLES
Number of Conductivity
Using eddy current method, we developed a contactless
samples 1 Conductivity 2 electrical conductivity measurement system. With this
Broken end (1-2)/ LM
Aging end (P2) 1 P system, we measured the electrical conductivities of Cu-Cr-
(P1) (107 S/m)
(107 S/m) Zr copper alloy samples under different creep/fatigue testing
CUS-1 5.21 4.50 0.136 10.6 conditions; and found that the change of the electrical
conductivity had positive correlation with the LMP value of
CUS-2 5.70 4.59 0.195 28.8 the samples. The results show that it might be possible to do
CUS-3 5.25 4.22 0.196 27.6 degradation evaluation and life time estimation of copper
alloy by monitoring the change of the electrical conductivity.
CUS-4 5.68 4.52 0.204 29.2

CUS-5 5.05 4.40 0.170 26.3

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We thank Prof. E. Sato and Dr. M. Shiwa for preparing
CUS-6 4.20 3.36 0.20 27.9
the copper alloy samples.

Larson–Miller parameter (LMP) was normally used to REFERENCES

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copper alloy. The calculation of LMP was expressed by
formula (11).
LMP  T  C  log(t )  
where, LMP was the Larson–Miller parameter, C was a
constant typically found to be in the range of 20 to 22 for
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in hours and temperature T was in degrees Rankine, which
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III.
Fig. 5 shows the relation of (1-2)/1 with the LMP
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biggest LMP value and biggest conductivity change; and
CUS-5 had the smallest LMP value and smallest
conductivity change.
Figure 5. Relation of the coductivity changes and the LMP values for
copper alloy samples under differenct creep/fatigue testing conditions.
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