Precise Thermal NDE for Quantifying Structural Damage

We have developed precise thermal NDE as a wide-area inspection tool to quantify structural damage within airframes and bridge decks. We used infrared cameras and image processing to produce precise temperature, thermal inertia, and cooling-rate maps of flash-heated aircraft skins. These maps allowed us to distinguish major structural defects from minor flaws which do not warrant costly repairs. We quantified aircraft skin corrosion defects with metal losses as low as 5% with 3% overall uncertainty [1–6]. We proved the feasibility of precise thermal NDE to inspect naturally-heated asphalt-concrete bridge decks. To this end, we quantified structural damage within asphalt-concrete slabs by locating the sites, and determining the relative volumes, of concrete displacements from 2-inch deep and 4-inch deep synthetic delaminations in asphalt-concrete slabs [4–8]

Infrared Thermography

Infrared thermography also commonly referred as thermal imaging, or simply thermography, is a nondestructive testing (NDT) technique that has received vast and growing attention for diagnostics and monitoring in the last few decades. This is mainly due to the fact that commercial infrared or thermal cameras, the main instrument for performing infrared thermography, are continuously improving in both sensibility and in spatial resolution, and they are getting faster and relatively less expensive. Every year or so, it is possible to acquire a better camera for about the same cost as the preceding model from the year before