10 Apr Thermal Wave Imaging Featured In SAMPE Journal
A paper by Thermal Wave Imaging authors Maria Frendberg Beemer and Steven Shepard is featured in the May/June 2020 issue of the SAMPE Journal, focused on Material and Structural Test Methods. The paper, entitled “Quantitative Comparison of Close-Proximity and Large-Standoff Thermography for Nondestructive Inspection of Carbon Epoxy Composites“, compares the flaw detection performance of a large-standoff, large-area thermography (LASLAT) system operating at a 10 ft. working distance, with that of a conventional flash thermography system operating at close proximity to the sample.
The performance of each system was evaluated for a carbon epoxy sample with pre-programmed flat bottom hole defects across a range of diameters and depths, with aspect ratios ranging from 16.7 to 1. Metrics for comparison include signal-to-noise of the defects and overall inspection time.
The study concludes that both systems, using Thermographic Signal Reconstruction (TSR) processing, are able to detect defects that do not appear in the unprocessed image sequence. Although SNR for the close proximity flash system is marginally higher than that of the LASLAT system, the LASLAT system is able to detect all defects except the smallest, deepest feature (diameter = 3 mm, depth = 3 mm, Aspect Ratio = 1), while providing a considerable increase in inspection rate. However, limitations are noted when using the LASLAT approach for inspection of thin, high thermal diffusivity materials (e.g. aluminum alloy aircraft skin).
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Flash Thermography 
Large-Standoff, Large-Area Thermography