Active Thermography
A thermography variant applying deliberate external thermal energy to the test object to evaluate transient cooling processes, enabling the detection of flaws that remain invisible in thermal equilibrium.
Active thermography is a non-destructive testing method. You briefly bring heat into the component and observe with a thermal imaging camera how the heat spreads and cools down again. Disturbances in the material, such as cracks or lack of fusion, disrupt the heat flow and thus become visible as hotspots or cold spots. It is important that you guide the heat source evenly over the surface and hold the camera steady, otherwise you get blurry images. The right amount of energy depends on the material and wall thickness – too much heat and the part glows, too little and you see nothing.