• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.284-290
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• 2012

Infrared thermography uses infrared energy radiated from any objects above absolute zero temperature, and the range of its application has been constantly broadened. As one of the active test techniques detecting radiant energy generated when energy is applied to an object, ultrasound infrared thermography is a method of detecting defects through hot spots occurring at a defect area when 15~100 kHz of ultrasound is excited to an object. This technique is effective in detecting a wide range affected by ultrasound and vibration in real time. Especially, it is really effective when a defect area is minute. Therefore, this study conducted thermography through lock-in signal processing when an actual defect exists inside the austenite STS304 seamless pipe, which simulates thermal fatigue cracks in a nuclear power plant pipe. With ultrasound excited, this study could detect defects on the rear of a pipe by using an aluminium reflector. Besides, by regulating the angle of the aluminium reflector, this study could detect both front and rear defects as a single infrared thermography image.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.193-199
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• 2015

Active thermography techniques have the capability of inspecting a broad range simultaneously. By evaluating the phase difference between the defected area and the healthy area, the technique indicates the qualitative location and size of the defect. Previously, the development of the defect detection method used a variety of materials and the test specimen was done. In this study, the proposed technique of lock-in is verified with artificial specimens that have different size and depth of subsurface defects. Finally, the defect detection capability was evaluated using comparisons of the phase image and the amplitude image according to the size and depth of defects.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.106-114
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• 2017

This paper presents an automated subsurface micro void detection technique based on pulsed infrared thermography for inspecting epoxy molding compounds (EMC) used in electronic device packaging. Subsurface micro voids are first detected and visualized by extracting a lock-in amplitude image from raw thermal images. Binary imaging follows to achieve better visualization of subsurface micro voids. A median filter is then applied for removing sparse noise components. The performance of the proposed technique is tested using 36 EMC samples, which have subsurface (below $150{\mu}m{\sim}300{\mu}m$ from the inspection surface) micro voids ($150{\mu}m{\sim}300{\mu}m$ in diameter). The experimental results show that the subsurface micro voids can be successfully detected without causing any damage to the EMC samples, making it suitable for automated online inspection.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.341-348
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• 2015

Active infrared thermography methods have been known to possess good fault detection capabilities for the detection of defects in materials compared to the conventional passive thermal infrared imaging techniques. However, the reliability of the technique has been under scrutiny. This paper proposes the lock-in thermography technique for the detection and estimation of artificial subsurface defect size and depth with uncertainty measurement.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.25-30
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• 2015

A wind turbine blade is an important component in wind-power generation, and is generally exposed to harsh environmental conditions. Ultrasonic inspection is mainly used to inspect such blades, but it has been difficult to quantify defect sizes in complicated composite structures. Recently, active infrared thermography has been widely studied for inspecting composite structures, in which thermal energy is applied to an object, and an infrared camera detects the energy emitted from it. In this paper, a calibration method for active optical lock-in thermography is proposed to quantify the size. Inclusion, debonding and wrinkle defects, created in a wind blade for 100 kW wind power generation, were all successfully detected using this method. In particular, a ${\phi}50.0mm$ debonding defect was sized with 98.0% accuracy.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.68-71
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• 2006

Active thermography has been used for several years in the field of remote non-destructive testing. It provides thermal images for remote detection and imaging of damages. Also, it is based on propagation and reflection of thermal waves which are launched from the surface into the inspected component by absorption of modulated radiation. For energy deposition, it use external heat sources (e.g., halogen lamp or convective heating) or internal heat generation (e.g., microwaves, eddy current, or elastic wave). Among the external heat sources, the ultrasound is generally used for energy deposition because of defect selective heating up. The heat source generating a thermal wave is provided by the defect itself due to the attenuation of amplitude modulated ultrasound. A defect causes locally enhanced losses and consequently selective heating up. Therefore amplitude modulation of the injected ultrasonic wave turns a defect into a thermal wave transmitter whose signal is detected at the surface by thermal infrared camera. This way ultrasound thermography(UT) allows for selective defect detection which enhances the probability of defect detection in the presence of complicated intact structures. In this paper the applicability of UT for fast defect detection is described. Examples are presented showing the detection of defects in PCB material. Measurements are performed on various kinds of typical defects in PCB materials (both Cu metal and non-metal epoxy). The obtained thermal image reveals area of defect in row of thick epoxy material and PCB.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.124-129
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• 2014

The piping system accounts for a large portion of the machinery structure of a plant, and is considered as a very important mechanical structure for plant safety. Accordingly, it is used in most energy plants in the nuclear, gas, and heavy chemical industries. In particular, the piping system for a nuclear plant is generally complicated and uses the reactor and its cooling system. The piping equipment is exposed to diverse loads such as weight, temperature, pressure, and seismic load from pipes and fluids, and is used to transfer steam, oil, and gas. In ultrasound infrared thermography, which is an active thermography technology, a 15-100 kHz ultrasound wave is applied to the subject, and the resulting heat from the defective parts is measured using a thermography camera. Because this technique can inspect a large area simultaneously and detect defects such as cracks and delamination in real time, it is used to detect defects in the new and renewable energy, car, and aerospace industries, and recently, in piping defect detection. In this study, ultrasound infrared thermography is used to detect information for the diagnosis of nuclear equipment and structures. Test specimens are prepared with piping materials for nuclear plants, and the optimally designed ultrasound horn and ultrasound vibration system is used to determine damages on nuclear plant piping and detect defects. Additionally, the detected images are used to improve the reliability of the surface and internal defect detection for nuclear piping materials, and their field applicability and reliability is verified.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.176-181
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• 2014

In these days, new and renewable energy is getting popular around globe and wind power generator is one of the renewable energy. In this study, we conducted a study on defect detection of composite material blade for wind power generator by applying active infrared thermography and produced a defect test piece by applying composite material used for blade of wind power generator. An infrared thermal camera and 2 kW halogen lamp are used for the purpose of research as equipments. Also, we analyzed temperature characteristic by using infrared thermal camera after checking a heat source on a test piece and found effectiveness of infrared thermography to blade of wind power generator by detecting defects resulting from temperature difference of a test piece, which eventually improve the safety and reliability of the composite material blade.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.1A
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• pp.53-59
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• 2010

Recently, NDTs (Non-Destructive Techniques) using infrared camera are widely studied for detection of damage and void in RC (reinforced concrete) structures and they are also considered as an effective techniques for maintenance of infrastructures. The temperature on concrete surface depends on material and thermal properties such as specific heat, thermal conductivity, and thermal diffusion coefficient. Different porosity on cement mortar due to different mixture proportions can show different heat behavior in cooling stage. The porosity can affect physical and durability properties like strength and chloride diffusion coefficient as well. In this paper, active thermography which uses flash for heat induction is utilized and thermal characteristics on surface are evaluated. Samples of cement mortar with W/C (water to cement ratio) of 0.55 and 0.65 are prepared and physical properties like porosity, compressive strength, and chloride diffusion coefficient are evaluated. Then infrared thermography technique is carried out in a constant room condition (temperature $20{\sim}22^{\circ}C$ and relative humidity 55-60%). The mortar samples with higher porosity shows higher residual temperature at the cooling stage and also shows reduced critical time which shows constant temperature due to back wall effect. Furthermore, simple equation for critical time of back wall effect is suggested with porosity and experimental constants. These characteristics indicate the applicability of infrared thermography as an NDT for quality assessment of cement based composite like concrete. Physical properties and thermal behavior in cement mortar with different porosity are analyzed in discussed in this paper.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.163-169
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• 2017

Purpose: This study was performed to evaluate the feasibility of using an infrared thermography technique for phenotype analysis of pepper seedlings exposed to a low-temperature environment. Methods: We employed an active thermography technique to evaluate the thermal response of pepper seedlings exposed to low-temperature stress. The temperatures of pepper leaves grown in low-temperature conditions ($5^{\circ}C$, relative humidity [RH] 50%) for four periods (6, 12, 24, and 48 h) were measured in the experimental setting ($23^{\circ}C$, RH 70%) as soon as pepper seedling samples were taken out from the low-temperature environment. We also assessed the visible images of pepper seedling samples that were exposed to low-temperature stress to estimate appearance changes. Results: The greatest appearance change was observed for the low-temperature stressed pepper seedlings that were exposed for 12 h, and the temperature from these pepper seedling leaves was the highest among all samples. In addition, the thermal image of low-temperature stressed pepper seedlings for 6 h exhibited the lowest temperature. Conclusions: We demonstrated that the leaf withering owing to the water deficiency that occurred under low-temperature conditions could induce an increase in temperature in plant leaves using the infrared thermography technique. These results suggested that the time-resolved and averaged thermal signals or temperatures of plants could be significantly associated with the physiological or biochemical characteristics of plants exposed to low-temperature stress.