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Infrared Thermography
Infrared Thermography
In addition, there are two approaches in thermographic inspection: (1) passive, in which the
features of interest are naturally at a higher or lower temperature than the background, for
example: the surveillance of people on a scene; and (2) active, in which an energy source is
required to produce a thermal contrast between the feature of interest and the background, for
example: an aircraft part with internal flaws.
When compared with other classical nondestructive testing techniques such as ultrasonic testing
or radiographic testing, thermographic inspection is safe, nonintrusive and noncontact, allowing
the detection of relatively shallow subsurface defects (a few millimeters in depth) under large
surfaces (typically 30x30 cm2 at once, although inspection of larger surfaces is possible) and in a
fast manner (from a fraction of a second to a few minutes depending in the configuration, see
below).
There are many other terms widely used all referring to infrared thermography, the adoption of
one or other term depends on the authors background and preferences. For instance, video
thermography and thermal imaging draw attention to the fact that a sequence of images is
acquired and is possible to see it as a movie. Pulse-echo thermography and thermal wave
imaging are adopted to emphasize the wave nature of heat. Pulsed video thermography, transient
thermography, and flash thermography are used when the specimen is stimulated using a short
energy pulse.
Technique
A wide variety of energy sources can be used to induce a thermal contrast between
defective and non-defective zones that can be divided in external, if the energy is
delivered to the surface and then propagated through the material until it
encounters a flaw; or internal, if the energy is injected into the specimen in order to
stimulate exclusively the defects. Typically, external excitation is performed with
optical devices such as photographic flashes (for heat pulsed stimulation) or
halogen lamps (for periodic heating), whereas internal excitation can be achieved
by means of mechanical oscillations, with a sonic or ultrasonic transducer for both
burst and amplitude modulated stimulation. As depicted in the figure, there are
three classical active thermographic techniques based on these two excitation
modes: lock-in (or modulated) thermography and pulsed thermography, which are
optical techniques applied externally; and vibrothermography, which uses ultrasonic
waves (amplitude modulated or pulses) to excite internal features. In
vibrothermography, an external mechanical energy source induces a temperature
difference between the defective and non-defective areas of the object. In this case,
the temperature difference is the main factor that causes the emission of a broad
electromagnetic spectrum of infrared radiation, which is not visible to the human
eye. The locations of the defects can then be detected by infrared cameras through
the process of mapping temperature distribution on the surface of the object.