IRWeb INFO

The Electrophysics website has several new and useful items available in the area of Thermal Imaging Applications. One of the very interesting ones is the new Image Gallery. They call it a part of their “Knowledge Center” with summary and links to white papers and other links pertaining to infrared inspection and industrial thermal imaging

The image above is on their webpage and gives an idea of the quality of the images from their 640 x 480 imagers.

With FLIR’s BCAM ThermaCAM

This YouTube video shows FLIR BCAM infrared camera/thermal imager used as a non-invasive means of monitoring and diagnosing the condition of buildings. Find missing insulation, water leaks, structural problems, pest intrusion and much more!

This YouTube clip shows how a scene of nearly complete darkness as viewed with the naked eye is completely transformed by using a high resolution thermal imaging camera.

• The InfraCAMâ„¢ infrared camera/thermal imager from FLIR is low cost and high quality.It is ideal for electricians, facility managers, energy auditors, substation/troubleshooting/customer service inspection crews, or anyone who wants to do a better job with their predictive and facility maintenance programs. More information on the camera is here: www.goinfrared.com/cameras/camera/infracam-thermalimager/ 
• (NB: FLIR Systems is one of the largest developers and manufacturers of Infrared Thermal Imaging Equipment, operates Infrared Training programs worldwide and organizes and manages the annual Inframation Conference) 

To assure accurate noncontact infrared temperature measurement (on the Raytek Corporation website)

A brief discussion of five key factors that have to be taken into account when planning use of an IR thermometer to make a noncontact temperature measurement.

These then are expanded upon in other Raytek web pages as part of the their website education area.

The Five Key Elements, you ask?

According to Raytek they are:

* Distance to Target (Spot) Ratio
* Field of View
* Environmental Conditions
* Ambient Temperatures
* Emissivity

Editors Note: We think that’s an excellent start, but would add that response time and traceable calibration as two equally important factors, if one is planning to make truly serious temperature measurements, such as is often encountered when using the measurement in controlling a process that has time-variable properties.

The December ITC Inframation Newsletter (Vol. 8 Issue 12) has a thermal imaging applications story from experienced thermographer, Ronald Ruiz of the Reliability and Failure Analysis Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California ..”showing how he uses IR to inspect electronics that go literally ‘out of this world’”.

He’s been detecting  flaws in ASIC integrated microcircuits in regions as small as 15 micrometers in diameter!

The ITC Inframation Newsletter has been around for eight years now and is available by email on a free subscription basis , or you can view the archive on the ITC Website for the first few years.

To access the entire archive one needs to register on the site, but the information is still free!

A free, downloadable, PDF Format-328 KB, applications story in English is available on the DIAS Infrared website. It is entitled “High speed infrared camera for contactless temperature measurement on rotating tires” and is authored by by Helmut Budzier, Dresden University of Technology, Institute for Solid-State Electronics & DIAS Infrared GmbH, Manfred Zimmerhackl, DIAS Infrared GmbH, Volker Krause, Dresden University of Technology, Institute for Solid-State Electronics, and Günter Hoven, CMV Hoven GmbH in Germany.

Part of the paper’s conclusion’s are:

“…… it is possible to detect smallest temperature changes and to make an automatic online processing control even at 450 km/h. Figure 2 shows an example of a tire testing system. Figure 6 shows a tire profile at 280 km/h.”