Infrared transient thermography method for determining wall thickness of an object and system for making the same

摘要

In the present invention, there is disclosed an infrared transient thermography imaging system (10) including high-power flash lamp representing a heat source (11) fitted with spectrally tuned optical filters (18) and a focal-plane array camera (13) for infrared image data acquisition. The image data processing control computer (16) analyzes acquired infrared image data frames and provides a color-keyed display (17) of an imaged object (1) that correlates to object thickness over the imaged surface area. Acquisition of infrared data is initiated at a firing of a flash lamp (11) used to heat a surface of the object (1). A predetermined number of infrared image frames are acquired and recorded (15) over a predetermined period of time after firing of the lamp to develop a temperature-time (T-t) history of the object surface. A contrast curve is calculated for each pixel in the image frame, each pixel corresponding to an elemental region on the object surface.