A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF OPTIMIZATION METHODS FOR EDDY-CURRENT CHARACTERIZATION OF AERONAUTICAL METAL SHEETS

This paper presents eddy current non-destructive characterization of three aeronautical metal sheets by deterministic and stochastic inversion methods. This procedure consists of  associating the finite element method with three optimization algorithms (Simplex method and genetic and particle swarm algorithms) simultaneously determine electric conductivity, magnetic permeability and thickness of Al, Ti and 304L stainless steel metal sheets largely used in aeronautical industry. Indeed, the application of these methods has shown the performance of each inversion algorithms. As a result, while doing a qualitative and quantitative comparison, it was found that the Simplex method is more advantageous in comparison with genetic and particle swarm algorithms, since it is faster and more stable