The aim of the presented research was the development of a non-destructive method for automatic verification of the operating temperature of a semiconductor device. The primary objective was to correctly classify a device into one of two categories: packages with a junction operating at an excessively high temperature and packages with a junction operating within the acceptable temperature...
Pulsed Thermography (PT) has established itself as a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique for inspecting industrial materials. However, the automated detection and characterization of subsurface defects in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) components present distinct technical challenges compared to metals or carbon fiber composites. PVC is characterized by low thermal conductivity, high...
Improving aircraft availability while ensuring structural integrity has made the optimization of aeronautical maintenance a major industrial challenge. Current inspection methods do not reliably detect the most critical defects and are often too time-consuming to significantly reduce aircraft ground time.
Since 2018, an extensive experimental campaign has been conducted on lightning-struck...
In Germany, more than 130,000 m³ of low- and medium-level radioactive waste – approximately 90% of the national inventory – is stored in 200-liter steel drums at interim storage facilities. At present, the integrity of these drums is assessed primarily through manual visual inspection of the outer surface. While this approach can identify surface-visible corrosion, it cannot detect corrosion...
Seepage is a critical concern in earthen dams, often leading to internal erosion, piping, and potential structural failure if not detected at early stages. Conventional monitoring approaches, such as visual inspection and piezometer measurements, are limited by sparse spatial coverage and a lack of real-time capability. This study proposes a robust and automated framework that integrates...
This study evaluates the effectiveness of an Automated Defect Recognition (ADR) system for aeronautical composite structures through the integration of active infrared thermography and Deep Learning–based image analysis. The research aims to assess not only the performance of the computational model but also the reliability of the inspection technique itself when applied to diverse and...
Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) of aluminum alloys is highly sensitive to local thermal conditions, where subtle variations in melt pool dynamics can lead to defect formation such as lack of fusion, porosity, or gas trapping. Detecting and characterizing such defects during the build process remains a key challenge for in-situ monitoring systems. In this work, an infrared thermography...
Vibrothermography (VT) has emerged as an effective non-destructive testing technique for detecting barely visible impact damage (BVID) in composite materials. This work investigates vibrothermographic inspection of impact damage in carbon-based composites using fixed-frequency and frequency-sweeping ultrasonic excitation, enhanced by machine learning algorithms. Experiments were conducted on...
AI-driven active infrared thermography (AIRT) has emerged as a promising modality for supporting automated reliability assurance and safety monitoring across industrial and aerospace domains. By capturing the transient thermal response of materials under controlled excitation, AIRT enables non-destructive detection of subsurface defects such as impact damage, delaminations, and voids. Despite...
Abstract
Thermal imaging presents challenges for image registration due to uncorrelated temperature variations among objects, low inherent texture, reduced feature saliency, and modality-dependent contrast behaviour that differs from visible-spectrum imagery. These issues are particularly pronounced in thermal-to-thermal and thermal-to-visible registration tasks, where traditional...
Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) is fundamental for guaranteeing industrial structural integrity, with Infrared Thermography (IR) highlighted for its non-invasive detection capacity and no harmful radiation. However, the dependence on manual parameterization and the complexity of analyzing transient data poses a difficulty for the development of automated system for failure detection. This work...
Tungsten and tungsten-based alloy coatings are key candidates for plasma-facing components in fusion reactors due to their high melting point and favorable thermo-mechanical properties. However, their thermal performance is strongly influenced by microstructure, interfacial integrity, and processing-induced heterogeneities. Reliable, spatially resolved characterization of thermal properties...
Active infrared thermography (IRT) is a contactless and non-intrusive technique for non-destructive evaluation, providing a fast means for locating and sizing subsurface defects in a wide range of materials. The virtual wave concept (VWC) is a prominent approach for performing thermographic reconstruction, which leverages ultrasonic methods for accurately inferring the internal structures of...
The structural integrity of aeroengine blades is paramount to flight safety, yet the inspection of these critical components remains a significant challenge due to their complex geometries and exposure to extreme operating environments. While Visual Inspection (VI) serves as the standard industrial baseline for identifying surface anomalies, it is inherently limited in detecting subsurface...
