Fast broadband lock-in thermography for fragile structures using system identification.

In this project a new methodology for product testing and quality control is developed based on infrared lock-in thermography. Infrared thermography permits to visualize the thermal/ warmup response of objects. In particular, lock-in thermography employs a sinusoidal light source to warm up the object being studied. Although pulsed thermography (PT) is commonly used as thermographic inspection technique, this method is not well suited for inspection of fragile structures (art and biological tissue inspection, blood circulation, …) due to the large instant energy emission which involves insufficient controllability and non-uniformity. On the other hand, with traditional lock-in thermography only one defect depth can be inspected at a time. In addition, at least one steady state period of the sine wave excitation is necessary to obtain quantitative results.

Keywords:ART CONSERVATION, IDENTIFICATION, SYSTEM, THERMOGRAPHY

Disciplines:Modelling, Multimedia processing, Biological system engineering, Signal processing, Conservation-restoration science