Development of Barkhausen noise calibration blocks for reliable grinding burn detection

Artificial thermal damage to gear steel material was produced using two heating methods: induction heating and laser irradiation. In the present work, the aim was to obtain in-depth knowledge about the possibilities of producing controlled thermal damage to calibration samples for the Barkhausen noise (BN) method used in gear grinding burn detection and to detect this damage with the BN method. Laser irradiation was found to be a suitable method for controlled production of thermal damage. The results show that both the laser input power and laser traverse rate must be optimized to avoid the rehardening or magnetic saturation of the samples. A framework for the optimal laser parameters was constructed for the steel material studied here. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.