Lateral thermal flows for defect detection

• Applicant: Dr.-Ing. Sergey Lugin
• Subject Area: Synthesis and Properties of Functional Materials
• Term: from 2011 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 199704484

Existing thermal inspection techniques for detection of hidden structures are often based on propagation of the thermal wave in the frontal direction. The empirical rule for the single side inspection procedure (reflective scheme) says that the radius of the smallest detectable defect should be at least one to two times larger than its depth under the surface. The practice shows that the detection of defects with a diameter/depth ratio less than 0.8 is almost impossible.In this project we propose a new thermal inspection concept with the enhanced sensitivity. The new concept is based on propagation of the thermal wave in a lateral direction and observation of the surface thermal distribution. This approach allows to reveal the defects/cracks which are not detectable by the conventional inspection methods. The preliminary experimental investigations show that this technique has a significantly higher sensitivity to hidden structures and can be successfully applied in industrial inspection procedures

• DFG Programme: Research Grants