IR thermography benefits automotive industry

Technical paper describes how advanced IR thermography techniques are enabling the automotive industry to solve problems in new vehicle design studies and troubleshooting production problems

Developed in conjunction with major automotive producers in Germany, Japan and South Korea, Cedip's new Titanium IR thermography system is available with a choice of state-of-the-art InSb or MCT focal plane array detectors that achieve outstanding sensitivity of less than 20mk even at the highest frame rates in both the MWIR and LWIR domains.

Cedip Titanium IR thermography systems are simple to use and offer state-of-the-art image quality unmatched by less sensitive cameras.

Using either Camlink or USB2.0 interfaces Titanium IR Thermography systems are able to transmit commands at high pixel rate and full 14-bit dynamic range on notebook PC or high performance standard desktop PC for portable applications and high-speed long duration recording.

Comprehensive image analysis software dedicated to thermal measurement comes as standard.

The automotive industry is rich in applications for IR thermography.

These include dynamic stress measurement and non destructive testing of automotive components and structures, ultrasound excited thermographic techniques to identify cracks, delaminations, poor bonding or other material weaknesses as well as temperature studies to test the performance of air bags.

Applications illustrated in the paper include how fatigue in automotive steels may be characterised by a thermographic technique allowing measurement of mechanically dissipated energy during dynamic stress testing.

Following the dissipated energy production according to the level of the local constraint applied to material makes it possible to evaluate the limit of endurance of different steels.

Using a demodulation technique, 'lockin thermography' can be used to non destructively and accurately measure mechanical stresses allowing analysis of the mechanical behaviour of automotive chassis even those with complex geometries.

Non-destructive testing of automotive cylinder heads on the production line is demonstrated using the visualisation of a thermal wave produced by an ultrasonic or optical excitation.

Its propagation on the surface is followed by IR thermography.

Further applications examples using the Titanium IR Thermography system include temperature measurements on airbags (with adapted filters to various gases), brake discs and tyres.

Cedip Infrared Systems offers a range of high-performance infrared imaging cameras and systems incorporating the latest technology in optics, infrared focal plane array detectors, electronic hardware and software.

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