IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 50, NO.

4, APRIL 2014 2001504

Hysteresis and Magnetic Barkhausen Noise for SAE 1020

and 1045 Steels With Different Microstructures
Leonardo F. T. Costa1 , Marcos F. de Campos2, Gunther J. L. Gerhardt3 , and Frank P. Missell3
1 CEPEL, PFDF, Diviso de Planejamento e Fomento, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
2 UniversidadeFederal Fluminense, Volta Redonda 27255-125, Brazil
3 Universidade de Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul 95070-560, Brazil

Barkhausen noise (BN) was measured in SAE 1020 and 1045 steels with different microstructures. It was found that constituents such
as martensite and ferrite plus pearlite can be identified from their BN signatures and magnetic characterization data (coercivity and
initial permeability). Comparison of the 1020 and 1045 steels suggests that it may be possible to separate ferrite and pearlite, because
the BN burst in pearlite probably occurs for higher fields than in ferrite. The BN analysis, hysteresis, and initial permeability data
indicate that in martensite, the magnetization reversal occurs essentially by domain rotation, thus explaining the distinct martensite
BN signature.
Index Terms Barkhausen noise (BN), hysteresis curve, initial permeability, microstructure, nondestructive testing.

I. I NTRODUCTION TABLE I
C ONSTITUENTS OF SAE 1020 AND 1045 S TEELS (wt%)

I N FERROMAGNETIC materials such as steels, the

microstructural characteristics play a decisive role in deter-
mining both the average macroscopic magnetic hysteresis
curves and microscopic magnetization behavior as represented
by the Barkhausen noise (BN). Previously, Jiles [1] had pre-
sented a comprehensive discussion of the influence of carbon
content on the properties of the hysteresis loop for several
carbon steels with up to 1 wt%C. That work concluded that
domain wall motion was mainly influenced by the presence of
iron carbide particles, either in lamellae or spheroids, while
grain boundaries were of lesser importance. In an attempt to
standardize the representation of BN data, Sipahi et al. [2]
presented an analysis of pulse height and pulse wave form
as well as the frequency spectrum of Barkhausen emissions.
Those authors concluded that the form of magnetic field
excitation was crucial in determining the Barkhausen emission
spectrum, while pulse height, frequency spectrum, and pulse
wave form were important for representing the output. A
recent analysis [3] of BN and magnetoacoustic emission in
relation to plastic deformation of Armco iron, employed the
previous parameters, as well as the fast Fourier transform
(FFT) and a wavelet analysis in an attempt to present the
results in a useful manner. These papers show the need for
further analysis of the relationship between the BN and the
microstructure.
II. E XPERIMENT
Samples of two steels, nominally SAE 1020 (0.2 wt%C) and
SAE 1045 (0.45 wt%C), were prepared in the form of toroids
to facilitate magnetic measurements, avoiding the effect of
demagnetizing field. The actual compositions of the steels are
shown in Table I.
Manuscript received July 30, 2013; revised September 30, 2013; accepted
October 22, 2013. Date of current version April 4, 2014. Corresponding
author: F. P. Missell (e-mail: fmissell@yahoo.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2013.2287701
0018-9464 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
All toroids were austenitized at 910 C (10 C). After
austenitization they were placed in another furnace for 20 min
at the temperature of 700 C, and then cooled in air. Normal-
ization consists of complete austenitization followed by air
cooling [4].
Metalographic preparation was with Trident and Buehler
Microcloth with diamond suspensions of 15, 9, 6, 3, 1,
and 1/4 m, followed by attack with Nital and examination
with a Zeiss AX10 optical microscope and/or a Zeiss EVO
40 scanning electron microscope (SEM).
After heat treatment, toroidal samples were wound with
a primary (200 turns of 28AWG Cu wire) and a secondary
(200 turns of 42AWG Cu wire) for magnetic measurements.
For toroidal samples, there are no demagnetization effects to
be corrected. Noise measurements were made on the toroids
with a system developed in our laboratory, using a sinusoidal
signal varying at 0.5 Hz, generated by a low-noise DS360
Stanford Research Systems function generator. This signal
drove a bipolar amplifier (Kepco BOP 36-6M), which in
turn drove the primary coil. The signal from the secondary
was filtered (0.570 kHz) and amplified (Stanford Research
Systems SR640), after which noise data were collected with
a data acquisition board (IOTech 16-b ADC 1 MHz) at
500 000 samples per second and stored for later analysis.
During the BN measurement, a low resistance is employed in
series with the primary to monitor the real current. The rms
envelopes of the Barkhausen bursts were obtained with a mov-
ing window of 1000 points, which was moved successively
by 10 points. The values presented for the rms BN are the
result of averaging over 10 Barkhausen envelopes. A hysteresis
loop tracer (Globalmag Ltda) was used to determine hysteresis
2001504
Fig. 1. Magnetic induction B versus applied magnetic field H for three
samples of SAE 1045 steels, as described in the text.
Fig. 2. RMS Barkhausen voltage versus magnetic field for the 1045 samples
for decreasing magnetization.
Fig. 3. Superposition of rms Barkhausen voltage, hysteresis curve, and dB/dH
for normalized SAE 1045 samples.
loops for comparison with BN data. Thus a sinusoidal current
( f = 0.5 Hz) was used to drive the primary. The secondary
voltage was integrated to furnish the magnetic induction.
III. M AGNETIC M EASUREMENTS
Figs. 1 and 2 show the hysteresis curves and BN for the
1045 samples. The calculated dB/dH curve for the normalized
1045 samples is shown in Fig. 3, together with BN and the
hysteresis curve. Writing B = o (H + M) and considering
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 50, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
Fig. 4. Magnetic induction B versus magnetic field H for three 1020 steels.
Fig. 5. RMS Barkhausen voltage versus magnetic field for 1020 steels.
a sinusoidal magnetic field H = Ho sin t, then the voltage
across the pickup coil is given by
V (t) = NAHo (H ) cos t (1)
where N and A are the number of turns and area of the pickup
coil. It is observed in Fig. 3 that the peak BN response coin-
cides with the permeability maximum as expected from (1).
Thus, it is inferred that the BN peak is principally the result
of 180 domain wall motion.
Figs. 4 and 5 show the hysteresis curves and BN for the
1020 samples. The BN envelopes of Figs. 2 and 5 are shown
for decreasing magnetization.
The Barkhausen envelopes for our 1045 samples show a
small splitting, but are quite different from those observed, for
example, in [3], where two pronounced peaks are observed,
one for positive fields and the other for negative fields. In [3],
the flux path through the Armco iron samples was closed
with an Fe-Si C-core, so that demagnetizing effects (more 90
walls), though small, are still present.
The FFTs of the BN bursts were calculated to obtain the
information about their frequency content. Fig. 6 shows the
result for the 1045 steels. For the softer steels, the frequency
region around 20 kHz is clearly dominant.
As mentioned in [5], the analysis of initial permeability
is quite valuable for discussing the possible magnetization
reversal processes, such as irreversible domain rotation and
COSTA et al.: HYSTERESIS AND MAGNETIC BN
Fig. 6. FFT versus frequency of BN bursts for 1045 steels.
TABLE II
I NITIAL P ERMEABILITY FOR THE S AMPLES S TUDIED
domain wall displacement. In the case of pure iron, the initial
permeability should be around 30 [5], [6] if rotation were the
only reversal mechanism. Values much above this lower limit
of 30 indicate significant domain wall displacement [5].
Both quenched (denoted as H2O in Table II) samples
(1020 and 1045) show small initial permeabilities, suggesting
significant magnetization rotation. The other 1020 samples
(normalized and annealed at 700 C) show higher initial
permeabilities, suggesting domain wall displacement.
Both 1045 samples, normalized and annealed at 700 C,
show small initial permeabilities in spite of the similarity of
their BN envelopes to those of the 1020 samples (Figs. 2
and 5). We suggest that the large amount of pearlite in the
1045 samples could be having a considerable effect on the
initial permeability (Table II). According to the phase diagram,
it is expected that the 1045 samples will have 60% pearlite
and 40% ferrite, whereas the 1020 samples should have 70%
ferrite and 30% pearlite.
Finally, the hysteresis curves (Figs. 1 and 4) for the
quenched 1020 and 1045 samples show a higher coercive
field. The high coercive field is explained by the presence
of martensite in the microstructure, with magnetic reversal
occurring using irreversible rotation.
IV. M ICROSTRUCTURE
The BN signature of martensite has been discussed in [7]
and [8], but closing the magnetic circuit with a yoke, as
typically used in NDE [2], [3] did not allow clear conclusions
about the fields associated with the bursts.
In a previous study on deformed samples of electrical
steel, it was found that the field for Barkhausen activity in
deformed samples is above the coercive field [9]. Similar
features were observed in this paper: Figs. 2 and 5 show that
martensitic samples present BN activity for fields above the
2001504
Fig. 7. SEM image for water-quenched 1045 steels showing martensite.
coercivity, suggesting 90 closure domain wall elimination.
Both deformed [10] and martensitic samples [7], [8] present
difficulties for movement of 180 domain walls, and this
results in a lower BN emission.
Fig. 7 shows the martensite needles in a water-quenched
sample of 1045 steel. The microstructure of quenched
1020 steel (not shown) is very similar. The nanometric struc-
ture of martensite is observed in these microstructures. The
martensite is a very deformed structure, with a high density
of dislocations [7]. The tridimensional shape of martensite
is lenticular but, in 3-D cuts, martensite appears as needles.
As domain wall movement is difficult in such fine structure,
reversion of magnetization happens essentially by means of
domain rotation. This results in higher coercivity, because
domain rotation becomes relevant as a reversal mechanism.
However, domain rotation generates very little BN [6], [7], and
this explains the low intensity of BN for the water-quenched
samples (Figs. 2 and 5).
On the other hand, in ferrite, the domain walls can move
freely, explaining the lower coercivity and higher intensity
of BN for the normalized and heat treated (700 C) sam-
ples (Figs. 15). Microstructures of the normalized samples
are shown in Figs. 8 and 9. Even in pearlite (Fig. 10), a
lamellar structure consisting of alternate lamellae of Fe3 C and
-Fe phases, the domain wall movement takes place. This is
shown by Fig. 3, where a strong BN peak is observed in the
region of 180 domain wall movement of the hysteresis curve.
A recent interpretation of the BN envelope considers the
BN peak as divided into two main bursts [10], [11]:
1) there occurs 180 domain wall movement;
2) elimination of 90 domain closure walls.
The samples evaluated in this paper present only one clear
main peak, but this may be due to the complex nature of the
samples, consisting of several microstructural constituents, as,
for example, in a mixing of pearlite and ferrite (Figs. 8 and 9).
The double-horn structure of the BN observed for several 1045
samples (Figs. 2 and 3) may be due to the two microstructural
constituents, with the lower field peak associated with the
2001504 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 50, NO. 4, APRIL 2014

As 180 domain wall movement is very difficult in marten-

site, the BN peak for the quenched samples is possibly due
to 90 closure domain wall elimination. This suggestion is
supported by their occurrence at higher fields (Figs. 15).

V. C ONCLUSION
The results help to clarify the relationship between thr
microstructure of steels and magnetic measurements in nonde-
structive testing. Different constituents such as martensite and
ferrite plus pearlite can be identified from their BN signatures
and magnetic measurement data (including coercivity and
initial permeability). Data from the 1045 steels suggests that
it may be possible to separate ferrite and pearlite, because the
BN burst in pearlite probably occurs for higher fields than in
ferrite.
Fig. 8. Microstructure of normalized 1045 steels showing ferrite (white) and
pearlite (black).
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported in part by the Brazilian agencies
FAPERGS under Project 1009955, in part by SCIT/RS, and
in part by CNPq under Project 472827/2011-1. The work of
F. P. Missell was supported by CNPq. M. F. de Campos would
like to thank CNPq.

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