TY - JOUR A1 - Pelkner, Matthias A1 - Neubauer, Andreas A1 - Reimund, Verena A1 - Kreutzbruck, Marc T1 - Routes for GMR-sensor design in non-destructive testing N2 - GMR sensors are widely used in many industrial segments such as information technology, automotive, automation and production, and safety applications. Each area requires an adaption of the sensor arrangement in terms of size adaption and alignment with respect to the field source involved. This paper deals with an analysis of geometric sensor parameters and the arrangement of GMR sensors providing a design roadmap for non-destructive testing (NDT) applications. For this purpose we use an analytical model simulating the magnetic flux leakage (MFL) distribution of surface breaking defects and investigate the flux leakage signal as a function of various sensor parameters. Our calculations show both the influence of sensor length and height and that when detecting the magnetic flux leakage of µm sized defects a gradiometer base line of 250 µm leads to a signal strength loss of less than 10% in comparison with a magnetometer response. To validate the simulation results we finally performed measurements with a GMR magnetometer sensor on a test plate with artificial µm-range cracks. The differences between simulation and measurement are below 6%. We report on the routes for a GMR gradiometer design as a basis for the fabrication of NDT-adapted sensor arrays. The results are also helpful for the use of GMR in other application when it comes to measure positions, lengths, angles or electrical currents. KW - Giant magneto resistance KW - Non-destructive testing KW - Magnetic flux leakage KW - Sensor array PY - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-271325 SN - 1424-8220 VL - 12 IS - 9 SP - 12169 EP - 12183 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-27132 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -