DEDICATED PROCESSING ROUTINES FOR INDUSTRIAL THERMAL IMAGING: An Automated, Non-intrusive Inspection Approach

Infrared thermography is a popular technique for the non-destructive testing and evaluation of different materials and manufactured structures due to its contact-less and real-time inspection nature. Thermography has been successfully applied in many fields ranging from the aviation industry to the machine vision applications for online process control and product evaluation. Extended applications may be hindered by the difficulty associated with the automation of the thermograms analysis and the development of dedicated processing algorithms that account for the target thermal conditions. This book focuses on the development of new processing approaches for the thermographic facial and sub-facial NDT and E when applied in industrial settings. Facial applications incorporate the testing of newly coated structures, which is illustrated through two case studies. One is the automated detection of Seeds on painted car shells and the second addresses the evaluation of protective coat coverage. Sub-facial applications cover the detection and characterization of subsurface anomalies as in evaluating the kissing bond integrity in plastic welded joints; using a pulsed thermographic system.