Vibrothermographic Testing of Structures

Abstract:

The paper investigates practical aspects of vibrothermographic testing of structures. Two application cases of vibrothermography are presented and discussed. The examples are weld test specimens and a military aircraft skin. Measurements have been performed with use of an in-house vibrothermographic testing system. In case of welded specimens a series of carbon steel test samples with different flaw types have been investigated. In case of aircraft testing, field measurements have been performed on a wing and fuselage sections in order to assess their structural integrity. The paper presents thermal image processing technique that allows to increase the quality and readability of the results coming from field measurements with poor ultrasonic excitation and with low thermal response from the structure. The paper is concluded with the discussion on applications of vibrothermographic testing in Structural Health Monitoring.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 518)
• Pages: 418-427
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.518.418
• Online since: July 2012
• Authors: Mariusz Szwedo, Łukasz Pieczonka, Tadeusz Uhl
• Keywords: Image Processing, Infrared Imaging, Nondestructive Testing (NDT), Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), Thermography, Ultrasound Thermography, Vibrothermography

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