History and Future of Pulsed Eddy Current
The basic pulsed eddy current principle was known for a long time, but ARCO (Atlantic Richfield Company) was the first one who applied it for wall thickness measurements. ARCO named the inspection equipment “TEMP®”, as acronym for “Transient Electro Magnetic Probe”.
ARCO was an American chemical company that needed a system for detecting corrosion under insulation. After a development period they applied the system successfully in Alaska for their own purposes. ARCO patented the principle and approached a few NDT-companies who might be interested in this NDT inspection method. The method was proven but needed further development. Shell and RTD were one of the selected companies that received a system for trials.
Shell and RTD worked both to the improvement and innovation of the ARCO-TEMP tool.
Due to the fact that many customers were confused by the name TEMP®, associating it with a temperature measuring technique, RTD decided to change the name TEMP® into RTD-INCOTEST® (an acronym for INsulated COmponent TESTing) while Shell named their equipment PEC which stands for Pulsed Eddy Current. The INCOTEST was developed by RTD during a cooperation with BonPhysics that started in 1997.
In 2015 the PEC technology has been transferred from Shell Global Solution to TR Sonovation. In 2016 TR Sonovation initiated the PEC technology innovation Road Map merging the RTD-INCOTEST and the Shell PEC know-how which resulted in the SONOPEC equipment. SONOPEC was launched to the market in 2017.
After the TR Sonovation decision to stop developing SONOPEC in 2020, BonPhysics B.V. decided to continue the Pulsed Eddy Current development and since 2023 supplies the market with BonPEC providing a cost effective Pulsed Eddy Current system using new sensor technology.
Victor O. de Haan – owner and director of BonPhysics B.V. – and Riccardo cooperate and innovate the Pulsed Eddy Current technology and its applications longer than 25 years. During the years they contribute to the development and innovation of RTD-INCOTEST, SONOPEC and BonPEC. To continue the PEC technology innovation, the development of its application and its integration into Robotic Systems, ROV’s and Crawlers, Riccardo and Victor founded RIVOLVE Solutions B.V. in December 2024.
What about the future?
Currently there are different Pulsed Eddy Current equipment suppliers on the market RIVOLVE Solutions B.V. focusses on specialities and tailor-made solutions. Our objective is to innovate the BonPEC technology allowing measurements not only on carbon steel and low allayed carbon steel components but also on components made of non-magnetic metals (SS, Al, Cu, etc.), reducing the probe’s footprint by developing more sensitive sensors. We are working on absolute probes, so that no reference measurement will be needed anymore. We aim to integrate the hardware in the probe, and update the software in such a way that it will automatically filter and detect defect.