Infrared and thermal testing

"Infrared thermography, a nondestructive, remote sensing technique, has proved to be an effective, convenient, and economical method of testing concrete.

Because of the potential heterogeneities in the surrounding pipe (i.e., different types of soils), it can be difficult to distinguish targeted objects from background noise.

Infrared thermographic testing may be performed during day or night, depending on environmental conditions and the desired results.

After the thermal data is processed, it can be displayed on a monitor in multiple shades of gray scale or color.

The colors displayed on the thermogram are arbitrarily set by the Thermographer to best illustrate the infrared data being analyzed.

When engineers use proprietary systems to locate subsurface targets such as underground storage tanks (USTs), pipelines, pipeline leaks and their plumes, and hidden tunnels, their locations are identified by temperature patterns typically in the range of 0.01 °C to 1 °C above or below ambient temperatures.

In this roofing investigation application, infrared thermographic data was collected during daytime hours, on both sunny and rainy days.

Good solid backfill should have the least resistance to conduction of energy and the convection gas radiation effects should be negligible.

In practical terms, this means that when looking at large areas of ground cover, the engineer in charge of testing must be aware of differing surface textures caused by such things as broom roughed spots, tire rubber tracks, oil spots, loose sand and dirt on the surface and the height of grassy areas.