• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.201-207
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• 2018

This paper proposes a line laser thermography scanning (LLTS) system for multiple crack evaluation on a concrete structure, as the core technology for unmanned aerial vehicle-mounted crack inspection. The LLTS system consists of a line shape continuous-wave laser source, an infrared (IR) camera, a control computer and a scanning jig. The line laser generates thermal waves on a target concrete structure, and the IR camera simultaneously measures the corresponding thermal responses. By spatially scanning the LLTS system along a target concrete structure, multiple cracks even in a large scale concrete structure can be effectively visualized and evaluated. Since raw IR data obtained by scanning the LLTS system, however, includes timely- and spatially-varying IR images due to the limited field of view (FOV) of the LLTS system, a novel time-spatial-integrated (TSI) coordinate transform algorithm is developed for precise crack evaluation in a static condition. The proposed system has the following technical advantages: (1) the thermal wave propagation is effectively induced on a concrete structure with low thermal conductivity of approximately 0.8 W/m K; (2) the limited FOV issues can be solved by the TSI coordinate transform; and (3) multiple cracks are able to be visualized and evaluated by normalizing the responses based on phase mapping and spatial derivative processes. The proposed LLTS system is experimentally validated using a concrete specimen with various cracks. The experimental results reveal that the LLTS system successfully visualizes and evaluates multiple cracks without false alarms.