Thermography Explained: How Infrared Imaging Detects Temperature Variations

Do you want to detect temperature differences in your production? Is it critical in your installation that there are no leaks? Keep reading because thermography can be your solution!

What is Thermography?

Thermography is a technique with which, through an image, we can determine the temperature of any object or living being. This is because the infrared radiation captured by this type of cameras is emitted and absorbed in a greater or lesser quantity by all things.

While there are certain animals, such as some rattlesnakes or certain fish, that are able to see the infrared wavelength, humans, on the contrary, are only able to see in the visible range. This makes it necessary for people to use thermal imaging cameras, which capture and graph on a scale of visible colors, to be able to see the images obtained at the infrared wavelength.

Human: Visible vision 380 nm to 700 nm vs Rattlesnake: infrared vision 700 nm to 1000 nm

What is Thermography for in the company?

Thermography is spread across many sectors. Although its best known use is in the industrial sector, due to the ease of monitoring and control of online processes, or in maintenance work where it is necessary to constantly check that there are no leaks and detect them as soon as they appear. 

 

However, this technique is also used in many other sectors. In the food sector, for example, it is used for process control, being able to completely monitor the production surface, and thus detecting in cooking or baking processes if any area it is burning, or if, on the contrary, it is not reaching the necessary temperature.

In the healthcare sector, the use of this technique is quite different. Our immune system, although most of the time we don’t realize it, generates heat by fighting infections, foreign bodies in our organism like tumors, or trying to heal our injuries. This focused temperature rise can be seen using thermal imaging cameras.

Also in the construction sector, thermography plays an important role, both for new buildings and for the rehabilitation of buildings already built, since it is possible to detect thermal leaks in facades and unwanted thermal bridges. These defects cause an increase in energy consumption, and in addition that the comfort of the people who inhabit the buildings decrease, so it is important to detect them as soon as possible.

Thermography benefits

Thermography provides, among others, the following benefits:

• Contactless method: when capturing images, contact is not necessary.
• Non destructive: unlike other measurement methods, thermography does not require physical interaction with the material, and results can be obtained without damaging it.
• Real-time inspection: it can be constantly monitored, obtaining instantaneous results and being able to correct deficiencies found in production.
• Great adaptability: as it consists of a camera, it can be installed in a large number of production processes without having to modify them.
• Quality and reliability: by obtaining information at a wavelength not visible to the human eye, quality inspection is improved.
• Full mapping: of all the pieces and of all their visible areas, being able to observe defects or inhomogeneities.

Thermography applications

We explain you next some of the most interesting thermography applications:

• Determination of high temperatures: for elements that are at such a high temperature that it is not possible to use a conventional temperature sensor. Remote measurement of thermal imaging cameras is ideal.

 

• Leak detection: leaks, and especially air leaks, are invisible to the human eye, but as the fluid is at a different temperature than the duct, they are easily detectable in the infrared wavelength range.

 

• Hot spot detection: in certain installations, such as electrical installations, it is easy to detect if there is a connection that is overheating and to be able to take corrective measures before the installation deteriorates.

 

• Intrusion detection: when we have a production line, thanks to the differences in absorption and infrared radiation emission of each object, it can detect if there are elements that should not appear.

 

• Deterioration of insulators: both the electrical insulators from which the cable coatings are made, and the thermal insulators from which the walls of boilers or furnaces are made, when they suffer any damage to their insulation, let out heat to the outside, which can be observed using this technique.

 

• Body temperature detection: lately this method has been extensively applied to the determination of the temperature of people to check whether they have fever or not in the fight against COVID 19. Its medical application is not only there, since it is also used to detect tumors, injuries or infections in patients.

 

• Determination of behavior against temperature: if we want to know how our piece or design behaves with temperature, we can monitor it using a thermal imager and we will observe which areas are the first to heat up, how the heat is distributed in the piece and many other interesting data difficult to appreciate with other techniques.

 

• Overheating detection: in applications where friction occurs, heat is always generated. By means of thermography, this heat can be monitored to stop the process or to slow down the components to help cooling.

After what we have explained and the advantages offered by this type of measurement technique, have you found it interesting? Do you already use this technique? Do you want to implement it and do not know how? Get in touch with us and we will help you.

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