Monday, November 10, 2014

Infrared Inspection A Safe And Quick Way To Inspect Systems

By Mayra Pierce


A lot of cases exist where review of the system is required without contact, and this is commonplace. Infrared Inspection is the method of inspection of a system or materials with the use of ultraviolet sensors. This is the preferred method when it comes to inspection of places that are not accessible to access.

This type of inspection is not intrusive, which means that the process will not affect the state of the system in any way. Ultraviolet technology has gained popularity over other methods employed earlier such as ultrasound examination and radio graphic testing as it is safer, much faster and does not interfere with the system in any way.

All materials radiate infrared waves. Cameras or ultraviolet sensors can be used to create an image of this energy. A light source may or may not be required to capture these images in the form of heat imaging. If an exterior source of energy is used, it is referred to as an active process, else it is called passive. In the case of extremely low temperatures, the sensors are rendered useless, and it is often that these are used hand in hand with other devices for a better picture.

If the target exists at a temperature difference from its surroundings, passive processes can be employed. Often, however, an external light energy or external mechanical oscillations need to be provided to the target for creating the contrast, and this constitutes the active process of imaging. Imaging in this case is of the thermal type where the change in temperature is converted to an image.

Advantages that thermography provide includes inspection of hazardous and other inaccessible areas, ability to detect objects in the dark, ability to capture moving images and is also used in medical applications. Other areas where thermography is used include thermal mapping, night vision, surveillance and any other form of non-destructive testing.

Infrared thermal control, however, has drawbacks. The technology is pretty expensive, and good thermal cameras come at a high price. They are an integral part of the measurement and compromising on camera quality will lead to poorer results of the investigation with captured values having a lot of inconsistencies in temperature measurements.

Some other fallacies to this process are external factors. Temperature is something that can change very rapidly and due to a number of reasons. Also, the area surrounding the target may contain other bodies that may also be reflecting or emitting waves themselves. Other external factors may include sunshine, rain and the climate of the area.

Despite its flaws, thermal imaging has been beneficial to industries across many applications. Ultraviolet Inspection is one of the prime methods employed for non-destructive testing and non-contact inspection of materials and is also very safe and quick. It has found a variety of uses in night vision, surveillance, medical inspection, process control and in various other fields including chemistry and research. However, the accuracy and cost of the process remains a concern. Technological advancements which have happened so rapidly, have already led to a number of processes being replaced with ultraviolet detection and we can definitely expect expenses to go down in the future as infrared keeps expanding its sphere of applications.




About the Author:



No comments: