Low noise SQUID based NDE with non-magnetic scanning system in unshielded environment

A Non-magnetic scanning Robotic system with special EMC considerations has been designed for SQUID-Based NDE of room temperature stationary samples in unshielded environment. Considerable efforts have been made to cancel out noise of the system which resulted in detection of two major noise sources. Characterizing the noise contribution of the involved parts, a minor noise component was found to be due to the robot and the other due to liquid nitrogen bubbling in some frequencies which could be avoided by choosing proper excitation frequency. Using our NDE system we performed a NDE scan of hidden cracks in aluminum plates with white noise level of 50 μΦ₀/Hz^-1/2.