EMAT provides an opportunity for non-contact excitation of various acoustic waves with different polarizations in the tested object. Modern hardware base enables production of flaw detectors and thickness gauges that rely on EMAT and operate with operating clearances of up to 10 mm. This means that there could be paint, plastic, dirt, air and other non-conductive media, thickness up to 10 mm, between the surfaces of tested objects and the sensor surface. In this event, acoustic wave emerges in the tested object itself and it is not distorted by the contact medium. The mechanism of inducing mechanical vibrations on the basis of electrical vibrations in the course of EMAT can be divided into three components: magnetostriction, Lorentz force interaction and magnetic interaction. Lorentz force EMAT is mostly used to test steel products.
No couplant is needed for the operation of piezoelectric transducers
No need for preliminary surface preparation such as cleanup and smoothing
The EMA technology allows inducing various waves with different polarizations
EMA transducers have no sensitivity to the angle of transducer inclination relative to the acoustic wave input surface.