8.3 Thermografische Verfahren
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Thermographic NDT is based on the interaction of thermal waves with inhomogeneities. The propagation of thermal waves from the heat source to the inhomogeneity and to the detection surface according to the thermal diffusion equation leads to the fact that two closely spaced defects can be incorrectly detected as one defect in the measured thermogram. In order to break this spatial resolution limit (super resolution), the combination of spatially structured heating and numerical methods of compressed sensing can be used.
The improvement of the spatial resolution for defect detection then depends in the classical sense directly on the number of measurements. Current practical implementations of this super resolution detection still suffer from long measurement times, since not only the achievable resolution depends on performing multiple measurements, but due to the use of single spot laser sources or laser arrays with low pixel count, also the scanning process itself is quite slow. With the application of most recent high-power digital micromirror device (DMD) based laser projector technology this issue can now be overcome.
Our studies deal with the application of fully 2D-structured DMD-based excitation and subsequent super-resolution-based defect reconstruction. We analyze the influence of different testing parameters, like the number of measurements or the white content of the excitation pattern. Furthermore, we have dealt with the choice of parameters in the reconstruction that have an influence on the underlying minimization problem in terms of compressed sensing. Finally, the results of the super resolution reconstruction are compared with the results based on conventional thermographic testing methods.
In infrared thermography, the interaction of the heat flow with the internal geometry or inhomogeneities in a sample and their effect on the transient temperature distribution is used, e.g., to detect defects non-destructively. An equivalent way of describing this is the propagation of thermal waves inside the sample. Although thermography is suitable for a wide range of inhomogeneities and materials, the fundamental limitation is the diffuse nature of thermal waves and the need to measure their effect radiometrically at the sample surface only. The crucial difference between diffuse thermal waves and propagating waves, as they occur, e.g., in ultrasound, is the rapid degradation of spatial resolution with increasing defect depth. This degradation usually limits the applicability of thermography for finding small defects on and below the surface.
A promising approach to improve the spatial resolution and thus the detection sensitivity and reconstruction quality of the thermographic technique lies in the shaping of these diffuse thermal wave fields using structured laser thermography.
Some examples are:
• Narrow crack-like defects below the surface can be detected with high sensitivity by superimposing several interfering thermal wave fields,
• Defects very close to each other can be separated by multiple measurements with varying heating structures,
• Defects at different depths can be distinguished by an optimized temporal shaping of the thermal excitation function,
• Narrow cracks on the surface can be found by robotic scanning with focused laser spots.
We present the latest results of this technology obtained with high-power laser systems and modern numerical methods.
The properties of laser radiation result in a wide range of applications, making laser technologies indispensable in areas such as industry, science and medicine. The possible areas of application for thermography in this context are just as diverse. Thermography is used in laser applications when permanent monitoring and control of thermal development is necessary. Among others, this is the case in additive manufacturing, laser-based measuring devices and non-destructive testing. Furthermore, thermography is ideally suited as a testing method when it comes to ensuring the quality of the laser itself. In this talk it is outlined, how lasers can be used as a heat source in active thermographic testing. Furthermore, two special variants (spatial & temporal structured heating) are described, for which lasers are highly suitable.
Early detection of fatigue cracks and accurate measurements of the crack growth play an important role in the maintenance and repair strategies of steel structures exposed to cyclic loads during their service life. Observation of welded connections is especially of high relevance due to their higher susceptibility to fatigue damage. The aim of this contribution was to monitor fatigue crack growth in thick welded specimens during fatigue tests as holistically as possible, by implementing multiple NDT methods simultaneously in order to record the crack initiation and propagation until the final fracture. In addition to well-known methods such as strain gauges, thermography, and ultrasound, the crack luminescence method developed at the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), which makes cracks on the surface particularly visible, was also used. For data acquisition, a first data fusion concept was developed and applied in order to synchronize the data of the different methods and to evaluate them to a large extent automatically. The resulting database can ultimately also be used to access, view, and analyze the experimental data for various NDT methods. During the conducted fatigue tests, the simultaneous measurements of the same cracking process enabled a comprehensive comparison of the methods, highlighting their individual strengths and limitations. More importantly, they showed how a synergetic combination of different NDT methods can be beneficial for implementation in large-scale fatigue testing but also in monitoring and inspection programs of in-service structures - such as the support structures of offshore wind turbines.
Modern laser systems have proven to be versatile heat sources for active thermographic testing applications. Compared to more traditional light sources, e.g. flash or halogen lamps, their output power can be easily modulated at high rates, allowing a wide variety of complex excitations to be realized. Although their total optical output power can be theoretically scaled to arbitrary values, the maximum output power is practically limited by many factors: the maximum power that the sample under test can absorb without altering the lighted surface itself, the trade-off between power density and inspected area, the cost of the laser system, etc. Furthermore, when working with spatial modulator systems, the output power could be limited to avoid provoking any damages on such devices. Nevertheless, to guarantee sufficient heating even for highly thermally conductive materials and/or deeply buried defects, the heating times can be extended, e.g., either by using step heating, long pulse thermography, or by lock-in thermography with a continuously modulated heating. However, for all these approaches, the ranging capabilities of the thermographic defect detection are reduced due to the limited frequency content of the excitation.
To tackle this problem, i.e. to increase the excitation energy while preserving its frequency content, new approaches have been developed in the last two decades, among which the use of coded excitations combined with pulse-compression, and the use of multiple lock-in analysis or of a frequency modulated excitation signal. The challenges of such temporally structured heating techniques are manifold, for example, the DC component inherent in optical heating must be taken into account. In general, a wider frequency bandwidth or greater variability of the frequency components also means greater complexity for signal generation and data processing. In this paper, temporal structured excitation schemes with different degrees of complexity are compared on a high power laser system.
Anisotropy investigation of a single crystal superalloy using laser-spot infrared thermography
(2024)
Thermal property investigation of anisotropic materials such as single crystal superalloys are still in interest of practical and fundamental reasons but remains challenging using conventional testing methods. In this study, a single crystal superalloy is tested using laser-spot thermography, and its thermal anisotropy is investigated. Determining anisotropic thermal conductivity at microscopic scales is challenging, as it appears isotropic at the macroscopic scale. Infrared thermography is one of the best-known techniques for measuring material heat transfer properties and facilitating visualization of temperature distribution through the specimen. The proposed study uses the active thermography method of laser-spot infrared thermography, in which a laser spot is focused onto the sample surface and the thermal response is captured from the surface of the specimen with an infrared camera. A detailed analysis of temperature gradients and heat diffusion patterns aids in the measurement of thermal conductivity values along the sample's different crystallographic directions. The directional bonding characteristics and inherent crystallographic structure of the alloy account for the in-plane thermal conductivities calculated from experimental thermal measurements. The laser-spot thermography method has proven to be an effective tool for mapping the material's thermal conductivity anisotropy with high sensitivity and high spatial and temporal resolution. The investigation into the anisotropy of the material provides an insight into heat flow in the structure and helps in optimizing the design and overall performance of the material system.
Since laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M) is prone to the formation of defects during the building process, a fundamental requirement for widespread application is to find ways to assure safety and reliability of the additively manufactured parts. A possible solution for this problem lies in the usage of in-situ thermographic monitoring for defect detection. In this contribution we investigate possibilities and limitations of the VIS/NIR wavelength range for defect detection. A VIS/NIR camera can be based on conventional silicon-based sensors which typically have much higher spatial and temporal resolution in the same price range but are more limited in the detectable temperature range than infrared sensors designed for longer wavelengths. To investigate the influence, we compared the thermographic signatures during the creation of artificially provoked defects by local parameter variations in test specimens made of a nickel alloy (UNS N07208) for two different wavelength ranges (~980 nm and ~1600 nm).
Laser-based active thermography is a contactless non-destructive testing method to detect material defects by heating the object and measuring its temperature increase with an infrared camera. Systematic deviations from predicted behavior provide insight into the inner structure of the object. However, its resolution in resolving internal structures is limited due to the diffusive nature of heat diffusion. Thermographic super resolution (SR) methods aim to overcome this limitation by combining multiple thermographic measurements and mathematical optimization algorithms to improve the defect reconstruction.
Thermographic SR reconstruction methods involve measuring the temperature change in an object under test (OuT) heated with multiple different spatially structured illuminations. Subsequently, these measurements are inputted into a severely ill-posed and heavily regularized inverse problem, producing a sparse map of the OuT’s internal defect structure. Solving this inverse problem relies on limited priors, such as defect-sparsity, and iterative numerical minimization techniques. Previously mostly experimentally limited to one-dimensional regions of interest (ROIs), this thesis aims to extend the method to the reconstruction of twodimensional ROIs with arbitrary defect distributions while maintaining reasonable experimental complexity. Ultimately, the goal of this thesis is to make the method suitable for a technology transfer to industrial applications by advancing its technology readiness level (TRL).
In order to achieve the aforementioned goal, this thesis discusses the numerical expansion of a thermographic SR reconstruction method and introduces two novel algorithms to invert the underlying inverse problem. Furthermore, a forward solution to the inverse problem in terms of the applied SR reconstruction model is set up. In conjunction with an additionally proposed
algorithm for the automated determination of a set of (optimal) regularization parameters, both create the possibility to conduct analytical simulations to characterize the influence of the experimental parameters on the achievable reconstruction quality. On the experimental side, the method is upgraded to deal with two-dimensional ROIs, and multiple measurement campaigns are performed to validate the proposed inversion algorithms, forward solution
and two exemplary analytical studies. For the experimental implementation of the method, the use of a laser-coupled DLP-projector is introduced, which allows projecting binary pixel patterns that cover the whole ROI, reducing the number of necessary measurements per ROI significantly (up to 20x).
Finally, the achieved reconstruction of the internal defect structure of a purpose-made OuT is qualitatively and qualitatively benchmarked against well-established thermographic testing methods based on homogeneous illumination of the ROI. Here, the background-noise-free twodimensional photothermal SR reconstruction results show to outclass all defect reconstructions by the considered reference methods.
In this work, we present a novel approach to photothermal super resolution based thermographic resolution of internal defects using two-dimensional pixel pattern-based active photothermal laser heating in conjunction with subsequent numerical reconstruction to achieve a high-resolution reconstruction of internal defect structures. With the proposed adoption of pixelated patterns generated using laser coupled high-power DLP projector technology the complexity for achieving true two-dimensional super resolution can be dramatically reduced taking a crucial step forward towards widespread practical viability. Furthermore, based on the latest developments in high-power DLP projectors, we present their first application for structured pulsed thermographic inspection of macroscopic metal samples. In addition, a forward solution to the underlying inverse problem is proposed along with an appropriate heuristic to find the regularization parameters necessary for the numerical inversion in a laboratory setting. This allows the generation of synthetic measurement data, opening the door for the application of machine learning based methods for future improvements towards full automation of the method. Finally, the proposed method is experimentally validated and shown to outperform several established conventional thermographic testing techniques while conservatively improving the required measurement times by a factor of 8 compared to currently available photothermal super resolution techniques.
The achievable spatial resolution of active thermographic testing is inherently limited by the diffusive nature of heat conduction in solids. This degradation of the achievable spatial resolution for a semi-infinite body acting on a defect signal can be approximated by spatial convolution with the Green’s function of the heat PDE. As the degradation in spatial resolution is dependent on the depth 𝐿, a common rule of thumb specifies that for proper detection, any defect should feature a spatial extension greater or equal to the depth it is located at. However, as the exact shape of a defect can have a large impact on its severity, at best a proper reconstruction of the defect shape should be performed, which therefore must also deal with the aforementioned adverse effects of heat conduction. One recent method to overcome the spatial resolution limit of thermographic testing is the photothermal super resolution reconstruction method. It is based on performing multiple active thermographic measurements on the same region of interest (ROI) with varying spatially structured heating and subsequent numerical reconstruction of the measured defect signals by solving a severely ill-posed inverse reconstruction problem relying on heavy regularization. By extending the experimental implementation of the method to make use of random-pixel patterns projected onto the ROI using a laser-coupled DLP-projector, defect reconstructions can now be performed within a reasonable time frame (~15 min per ROI) at high accuracy. Compared to conventional thermographic testing methods, the photothermal super resolution reconstruction stands out by resulting in a sparse representation of the defect structure of the ROI, making it especially well-suited to further automatic defect classification and quality assurance measures in an Industry 4.0 context.