Image and Data Processing Techniques Applied to Infrared Thermographic Non-Destructive Inspections of Aeronautical Composite Components

摘要

Nowadays the use of technologically advanced materials such as composites is gaining an increasing interest due to their high strength to weight ratio and the possibilities to design optimum materials for specific applications that they offer. However, the utilization of these new advanced materials involves the requirements of application of also new quality control methods. A new generation of NDT techniques is being developed together with the composite materials. One of these new inspection techniques which has demonstrated good capabilities to measure the integrity of the composite materials is the Infrared Thermography (IRT). Although thermographic NDT techniques present many interesting advantages the main limitation appears in the detection of in-depth defects, due to the low penetration of the introduced heat inside the materials under test. IRT is applicable for surface and sub-surface defects detection. To overcome this limitation of the infrared technology, scientific research is focused in the development of image and data processing algorithms which improve the capability of detection. These mathematical algorithms not only improve the detection capabilities of the infrared technology but also make possible to classify the response of different defects for an automatic detection allowing the industrial implementation of this inspection technique.