Terahertz application for non-destructive inspection of coated Al electrical conductive wires

Abstract

At present, one of the main inspection methods of electric wires is visual inspection. The development of a novel non-destructive inspection technology is required because of various problems, such as water invasion by the removal of insulators. Since terahertz (THz) waves have high transparency to nonpolar substances such as coatings of conductive wire, electric conductive wires are extremely suitable for THz non-destructive inspection. In this research, in order to investigate the quantitative possibility of detecting the defects on aluminum electric wire, THz wave reflection imaging measurement was performed for artificially disconnected wires. It is shown that quantitative detection is possible for the disconnect status of the aluminum electric wire by using THz waves.