TY - JOUR A1 - Sobczak, M. A1 - Lecompagnon, Julien A1 - Hirsch, Philipp Daniel A1 - Pieczonka, Ł. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias T1 - Impact damage characterization on CFRP parts using laser line scanning active thermography N2 - This study presents a dual-path data processing framework for the detection and characterization of barely visible impact damage (BVID) in carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) structures using laser line thermography (LLT). A robotic LLT system was used to scan impacted CFRP specimens, and the resulting thermal sequences were analyzed using two complementary methods: full thermogram reconstruction followed by Pulse Phase Thermography (PPT) to detect subsurface delaminations, and Time-Summed Gradient Filtering (TSGF) to enhance surface-breaking cracks. Both processing paths produced interpretable results that were fused into a unified combined image and overlay mask, enabling simultaneous visualization of different defect types from a single scan. Quantitative analysis was performed on the binary masks to extract defect dimensions and Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values. The results demonstrated that delaminations and multiple cracks could be accurately detected and spatially distinguished, with good agreement to reference methods such as flash thermography and vibrothermography. This work highlights the potential of LLT as a versatile and scalable inspection technique, where multimodal defect detection and segmentation can be achieved through targeted processing and data fusion strategies. KW - Active thermography KW - CFRP KW - Laser line scanning KW - Delamination KW - Cracks KW - BVID KW - NDT PY - 2026 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-654097 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2026.113425 SN - 1359-8368 VL - 313 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-65409 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Berer, T. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias A1 - Thiel, Erik A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Gruber, J. A1 - Mayr, G. A1 - Hendorfer, G. T1 - Blind structured illumination as excitation for super-resolution photothermal radiometry N2 - Photothermal radiometry with an infrared camera allows the contactless temperature measurement of multiple surface pixels simultaneously. A short light pulse heats the sample. The heat propagates through the sample by diffusion and the corresponding temperature evolution is measured at the sample’s surface by an infrared camera. The main drawback in radiometric imaging is the loss of the spatial resolution with increasing depth due to heat diffusion, which results in blurred images for deeper lying structures. We circumvent this information loss due to the diffusion process by using blind structured illumination, combined with a non-linear joint sparsity reconstruction algorithm. The structured illumination is realized by parallel laser lines from a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) array controlled by a random binary pattern generator. By using 150 different patterns of structured illumination and our iterative joint sparsity algorithm, it was possible to resolve 1 mm thick lines at a distance down to 0.5 mm, which results in a resolution enhancement of approximately a factor of four compared to the resolution of 5.9 mm for homogenous illuminated thermographic reconstruction. KW - Super-resolution imaging KW - Thermography KW - Blind structured illumination KW - VCSEL array PY - 2019 DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/17686733.2019.1655247 SN - 1768-6733 VL - 17 IS - 4 SP - 268 EP - 278 PB - Taylor & Francis Group CY - Milton, UK AN - OPUS4-49122 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Thiel, Erik A1 - Ziegler, Mathias A1 - Studemund, Taarna T1 - Localization of subsurface defects in uncoated aluminum with structured heating using high-power VCSEL laser arrays N2 - We report on photothermal detection of subsurface defects by coherent superposition of thermal wave fields. This is made possible by structured heating using high-power VCSEL laser arrays whose individual emitter groups can be arbitrarily controlled. In order to locate the defects, we have developed a scanning method based on the continuous wavelet transformation with complex Morlet wavelet using the destructive interference effect of thermal waves. This approach can also be used for thermally very fast and highly reflective materials such as uncoated aluminum. We show that subsurface defects at an aspect ratio of defect width to defect depth down to 1/3 are still detectable in this material. KW - Thermography KW - Heat diffusion KW - Laser thermography KW - Structured heating KW - NDT KW - Subsurface defects KW - Thermal wave KW - VCSEL KW - Wavelet transformation PY - 2019 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10765-018-2478-9 SN - 1572-9567 SN - 0195-928X VL - 40 IS - 2 SP - 17, 1 EP - 13 PB - Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 AN - OPUS4-47208 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Puthiyaveettil, N. A1 - Thomas K, R. A1 - Unnikrishnakurup, S. A1 - Myrach, Philipp A1 - Ziegler, Mathias A1 - Balasubramaniam, K. T1 - Laser line scanning thermography for surface breaking crack detection modeling and experimental study N2 - Crack detection in metallic samples at high surface temperature, hostile and hazardous environments, etc. is challenging situation in any manufacturing industries. Most of the present NDE methods are suitable only for lower surface temperatures, especially room temperature. In this situation, we need a fast and non-contact NDT method which can be applied even in high sample surface temperature. Laser thermography is one of the techniques having a high potential in non-contact inspection. As a preliminary investigation, in this article, we have studied the potentiality of laser line thermography in crack detection at room temperature. In laser line thermography, a continuous wave (CW) laser is used to generate a laser line, which in turn is used to scan the metal surface. The heat distribution over the sample surface is recorded by an infrared thermal (IR) camera. Two different approaches are reported in this work. Firstly, a stationary laser line source and its interaction with cracks; secondly, moving laser line source scanning over a surface with crack. When the distance between crack centre to laser line centre increases, crack detectability will decrease; and when laser power increases, crack detectability will increase. A dedicated image processing algorithm was developed to improve the detectability of the cracks. To understand the heat transfer phenomenon, a simplified 3D model for laser thermography was developed for the heat distribution during laser heating and was validated with experimental results. Defects were incorporated as a thermally thin resistive layer (TTRL) in numerical modeling, and the effect of TTRL in heat conduction is compared with experimental results. KW - Thermography KW - Laser Thermography KW - Cracks KW - FEM KW - NDT PY - 2019 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infrared.2019.103141 VL - 104 SP - 103141 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-49941 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Unnikrishnakurup, Sreedhar A1 - Myrach, Philipp A1 - Polomski, Benjamin A1 - Le Claire, Elisabeth A1 - Vengara, N. A1 - Balasubramaniam, Krishnan A1 - Ziegler, Mathias T1 - Thermographic crack detection in hot steel surfaces N2 - The detection and characterization of surface cracks in steel specimens prior to damage is a technologically and economically highly significant task and is of utmost importance when it comes to safety-relevant structures. In steel production where steel billets at high temperatures have to be inspected while moving a number of well-established NDT methods cannot be applied. Laser thermography however is a promising candidate to serve as a fast, non-contact and remote tool in this case. We present a study that shows that the crack detection capabilities of laser thermography can be extended also to specimens at high temperature. A combination of inductive and laser heating allows to systematically study the contrast formation as well as the optimization of the important measurement parameters. The experiments are accompanied by FEM simulations that provide a better insight of the physical correlations and support the experimental developments. The aim of these studies is to develop a system with high inspection speed and detection performance to be in-line operated under the hostile environment of steel production lines. T2 - 19th World Conference on Non-Destructive Testing (WCNDT 2016) CY - Munich, Germany DA - 13.06.2016 KW - In-line Monitoring KW - Laser Infrared thermography KW - Cracks KW - Induction heating KW - Steel billets KW - FEM simulation PY - 2016 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-389161 UR - http://ndt.net/?id=19573 SN - 1435-4934 VL - 21 IS - 7 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - NDT.net CY - Kirchwald AN - OPUS4-38916 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jonietz, Florian A1 - Ziegler, Mathias A1 - Myrach, Philipp A1 - Suwala, H. A1 - Rethmeier, Michael T1 - Untersuchung von Punktschweißverbindungen mit aktiver Thermografie N2 - Widerstandspunktschweißen ist insbesondere im Automobilbau eine der wichtigsten Fügetechniken. Bislang erfolgt die Qualitätssicherung überwiegend durch stichprobenartige zerstörende Prüfung. Eine zerstörungsfreie Prüftechnik würde neben der Reduzierung der Prüfkosten auch eine Optimierung des Punktschweißverfahrens bedeuten, da prinzipiell jeder Schweißpunkt geprüft werden könnte und somit auch eine Reduzierung der Anzahl der Schweißpunkte möglich ist. Es wird ein Verfahren vorgestellt, bei dem die Punktschweißverbindung zwischen zwei Stahlblechen optisch auf einer Blechseite mittels Laser oder Blitzlicht erwärmt wird. Die aufgeschmolzene Zone, die sogenannte Schweißlinse, stellt dabei neben der mechanischen Verbindung auch eine Wärmebrücke zwischen den beiden verschweißten Blechen dar, die bei diesem Verfahren ausgenutzt wird. Durch den verbesserten thermischen Kontakt zwischen den verschweißten Blechen an der Schweißlinse kontrastiert diese deutlich mit dem umgebenden Blechmaterial, bei dem der Wärmeübertrag zwischen den Blechen vergleichsweise gering ist. Dieser Kontrast im thermischen Verhalten kann mittels zeitabhängiger Thermografie gemessen werden. Durch das hier vorgestellte Verfahren kann mittels aktiver Thermografie sowohl in Transmissions- als auch in Reflexionsanordnung die Größe des thermischen Kontaktes zwischen den beiden Blechen ermittelt werden, welche ein Maß für die Größe der Schweißlinse und damit für die qualitative Güte der Schweißung darstellt. Ein Vorteil des entwickelten Verfahrens ist seine Anwendbarkeit auf Bleche ohne Oberflächenbehandlung. T2 - DACH-Jahrestagung 2015 CY - Salzburg, Austria DA - 11.05.2015 PY - 2015 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-343476 UR - http://www.ndt.net/?id=19068 SN - 1435-4934 VL - 21 IS - 4 SP - 1 EP - 7 PB - NDT.net CY - Kirchwald AN - OPUS4-34347 LA - deu AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -