Calibration procedure for focal plane array cameras and noise equivalent material loss for quantitative thermographic NDT

In this paper, a complete procedure is proposed for the calibration of a focal plane array in quantitative infrared nondestructive testing (NDT). This procedure includes vignetting correction and gray level conversion into temperature. A noise analysis is also presented in the context of pulsed infrared thermography applied to NDT. In this analysis, the authors introduce a new parameter, the noise equivalent material loss (NEML). The NEML is a global figure of merit which allows the comparison of different experimental set-ups for infrared pulsed thermography. Theory, experimental validation of the proposed concepts, and comparison with a few infrared scanning thermal imagers are presented as well.