Time-response-histogram-based feature of magnetic barkhausen noise for material characterization considering influences of grain and grain boundary under in situ tensile test

Stress is the crucial factor of ferromagnetic material failure origin. However, the non-destructive test methods to analyze the ferromagnetic material properties’ inhomogeneity on the microscopic scale with stress have not been obtained so far. In this study, magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN) signals on different silicon steel sheet locations under in situ tensile tests were detected by a high-spatial-resolution magnetic probe. The domain-wall (DW) motion, grain, and grain boundary were detected using a magneto-optical Kerr (MOKE) image. The time characteristic of DW motion and MBN signals on different locations was varied during elastic deformation. Therefore, a time-response histogram is proposed in this work to show different DW motions inside the grain and around the grain boundary under low tensile stress. In order to separate the variation of magnetic properties affected by the grain and grain boundary under low tensile stress corresponding to MBN excitation, time-division was carried out to extract the root-mean-square (RMS), mean, and peak in the optimized time interval. The time-response histogram of MBN evaluated the silicon steel sheet’s inhomogeneous material properties, and provided a theoretical and experimental reference for ferromagnetic material properties under stress.