Point source thermography

• Main Author: Kam, Isaac Weng Chun
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/60437
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This report studies a new thermography method which employs point heating rather than heating lamps used in conventional active thermography. This method is aimed to be used as a non-destructive testing (NDT) inspection method for composite material. The objective of the experiment is to determine the feasibility and the effectiveness of point source thermography in detecting defects on a CFRP specimen. A laser beam is used as the point heating spot and IR camera is used to measure and record the temperature of the spot. Both heating and cooling of the spot is studied and analysed to detect defects which are embedded in different depths. Simulations are also created and used to analyse the result of the experiment. The result of the experiment shows that point source thermography is able to detect the defects clearly especially after thermal contrasts such as absolute and standard contrasts are applied. Finally, a possibility of multiple spot heating is studied to improve the rate of inspection of point source thermography to increase its feasibility and effectiveness as a NDT method.