Thermographic Detection o Conducting Contaminants in Composite Materials Using Microwave Excitation

This paper describes microwave-source time-resolved infrared radiometry (MW-TRIR) as a method for the detection and characterization of microwave absorption by conductive fibers and other absorbing regions in dielectric materials. Due to recent technical developments in the speed, detector array size, and sensitivity of infrared focalplane arrays, time-resolved infrared radiometry has evolved into an important NDE tool which allows fast area inspection at high spatial resolution. While much prior work has focused on the detection of structural defects or disbonds in a variety of materials [1,2], the increasing importance of composite materials requires new approaches to inspection which allow characterization of local material properties. Defects in such materials may have little thermal contrast compared to the matrix material and may be invisible using conventional infrared radiometry methods. However, where the embedding material is a weak microwave absorber, localized microwave absorbing regions can be detected easily. There are three different classes of absorption processes: (1) dielectric loss (e.g. water), (2) magnetic loss, and (3) Joule heating (e.g. electromagnetic radiation interaction with conducting fibers)