More than three decades ago, at Fraunhofer IZFP, research activities that were related to the application of micromagnetic methods for nondestructive testing (NDT) of the microstructure and the properties of ferrous materials commenced. Soon, it was observed that it is beneficial to combine the measuring information from several micromagnetic methods and measuring parameters. This was the birth of 3MA—the micromagnetic multi-parametric microstructure and stress analysis. Since then, 3MA has undergone a remarkable development. It has proven to be one of the most valuable testing techniques for the nondestructive characterization of metallic materials. Nowadays, 3MA is well accepted in industrial production and material research. Over the years, several equipment variants and a wide range of probe heads have been developed, ranging from magnetic microscopes with µm resolution up to large inspection systems for in-line strip steel inspection. 3MA is extremely versatile, as proved by a huge amount of reported applications, such as the quantitative determination of hardness, hardening depth, residual stress, and other material parameters. Today, specialized 3MA systems are available for manual or automated testing of various materials, semi-finished goods, and final products that are made of steel, cast iron, or other ferromagnetic materials. This paper will provide an overview of the historical development, the basic principles, and the main applications of 3MA.

Shafts for power generation machines have to be inspected in regards to the mechanical-technological properties of the final product material. To save time and costs, the nondestructive 3MA technique, which is based on the measurement of electromagnetic properties of the inspected material, should be used for this purpose. Due to the machining process, the material shows a Multilayer structure with different residual stress levels, each characterized by its own electromagnetic properties. To simulate signals of the so-called incremental permeability mode of 3MA, the individual electromagnetic properties had to be determined first. Subsequently, FEM methods have been developed, overcoming issues with respect to multiscale geometry and time, and the local hysteretic behavior identification at every point in the material under investigation. The developed computation strategy and the modeling assumptions are validated by a comparison of the numerical simulations with measurements and shows promising results.

The paper considers the Rockwell hardness investigation by finite element simulation in inspection situation of press hardened parts using the 3MA non-destructive testing system. The FEM model is based on robust strategy calculation which manages the issues of geometry and the time multiscale, as well as the local nonlinear hysteresis behavior of ferromagnetic materials. 3MA simulations are performed at high level operating point in order to saturate the soft microscopic surface soft layer of press hardened steel and access mainly to the bulk properties. 3MA measurements are validated by comparison with numerical simulations. Based on the simulation outputs, a virtual calibration is run. This result constitutes the first validation; the simulated calibration is in agreement with the conventional experimental data. As an outstanding highlight a correlation between magnetic quantities and hardness can be described via FEM simulated signals and shows high accuracy to the measured results.