An Investigation of the Bias Caused by Surface Coatings on Material Loss Evaluation by Quantitative Thermography

The effect of a surface coating on the response of a metallic substrate to pulsed thermal excitation is examined with the view to assessing its impact on the efficacy of quantitative thermographic evaluation as applied to the problem of material loss evaluation. An analytical model describing the response of a layered structure to a surface thermal excitation has been developed and its predictions are shown to be in excellent qualitative agreement with experimental observations. The results indicate that for materials with high thermal diffusivity, a surface paint layer bears important influence on the development of the surface thermal response and should be taken into account when undertaking quantitative assessments of thermographic data.