journal article·2021-12-20Open access

Latest Advances in Common Signal Processing of Pulsed Thermography for Enhanced Detectability: A Review

Yoonjae Chung, Seungju Lee, Wontae Kim

Applied Sciences· Volume 11· Issue 24

Abstract

Non-destructive testing (NDT) is a broad group of testing and analysis techniques used in science and industry to evaluate the properties of a material, structure, or system for characteristic defects and discontinuities without causing damage. Recently, infrared thermography is one of the most promising technologies as it can inspect a large area quickly using a non-contact and non-destructive method. Moreover, thermography testing has proved to be a valuable approach for non-destructive testing and evaluation of structural stability of materials. Pulsed thermography is one of the active thermography technologies that utilizes external energy heating. However, due to the non-uniform heating, lateral heat diffusion, environmental noise, and limited parameters of the thermal imaging system, there are some difficulties in detecting and characterizing defects. In order to improve this limitation, various signal processing techniques have been developed through many previous studies. This review presents the latest advances and exhaustive summary of representative signal processing techniques used in pulsed thermography according to physical principles and thermal excitation sources. First, the basic concept of infrared thermography non-destructive testing is introduced. Next, the principle of conventional pulsed thermography and signal processing technologies for non-destructive testing are reviewed. Then, we review advances and recent advances in each signal processing. Finally, the latest research trends are reviewed.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Thermography and Photoacoustic Techniques · Ultrasonics and Acoustic Wave Propagation · Fire effects on concrete materials

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Eco-Sustainable Energy Research Institute, Kongju National University, 1223-24 Cheonan-Daero, Seobuk-gu, Cheonan-si 31080, Korea

Department of Future Convergence Engineering, Kongju National University, 1223-24 Cheonan-Daero, Seobuk-gu, Cheonan-si 31080, Korea

Division of Mechanical & Automotive Engineering, Kongju National University, 1223-24 Cheonan-Daero, Seobuk-gu, Cheonan-si 31080, Korea

Funding

National Research Foundation of Korea

References (100+)

Show source-provided references
1. Description of the general outlines of the French project SENSO—Quality assessment and limits of different NDT methods10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2012.03.003 ↗
2. Introduction to NDT by Active Infrared Thermography
3. Shull, P.J. (2002). Nondestructive Evaluation: Theory, Techniques, and Applications, CRC Press.10.1201/9780203911068 ↗
4. Image fusion of ultrasonic and thermographic inspection of carbon/epoxy patches bonded to an aluminum plate10.1016/j.ndteint.2017.04.004 ↗
5. Vollmer, M., and Möllmann, K. (2017). Infrared Thermal Imaging: Fundamentals, Research and Applications, John Wiley & Sons.10.1002/9783527693306 ↗
6. Maldague, X. (2001). Theory and Practice of Infrared Technology for Nondestructive Testing, John Wiley & Sons.
7. Qu, Z., Jiang, P., and Zhang, W. (2020). Development and Application of Infrared Thermography Non-destructive Testing Techniques. Sensors, 20.10.3390/s20143851 ↗
8. Wiecek, B. (2005, January 1–4). Review on Thermal Image Processing for Passive and Active Thermography. Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology 27th Annual Conference, Shanghai, China.10.1109/IEMBS.2005.1616506 ↗
9. A novel approach for one-sided thermal nondestructive testing of composites by using infrared thermography10.1016/j.polymertesting.2015.04.013 ↗
10. Rapid thermal non-destructive testing of aircraft components10.1016/S1359-8368(00)00005-6 ↗
11. Investigation of lock-in infrared thermography for evaluation of subsurface defects size and depth10.1007/s12541-015-0290-z ↗
12. Evaluation of coating thickness by thermal wave imaging: A comparative study of pulsed and lock-in infrared thermography—Part II: Experimental investigation10.1016/j.infrared.2018.05.001 ↗
13. Infrared Lock-in Thermography Crack Localization on Metallic Surfaces for Industrial Diagnosis10.1007/s10921-013-0218-4 ↗
14. Flash Method of Determining Thermal Diffusivity, Heat Capacity, and Thermal Conductivity10.1063/1.1728417 ↗
15. Pulsed Phase Thermography Reviewed10.3166/qirt.1.47-70 ↗
16. Statistical Analysis of IR Thermographic Sequences by PCA10.1016/j.infrared.2004.03.012 ↗
17. A Quantitative Review of Three Flash Thermography Processing Routines10.1016/j.infrared.2007.09.006 ↗
18. Fusion Model of Inductive Thermography and Ultrasound for Nondestructive Testing10.1016/j.infrared.2019.06.016 ↗
19. Niola, V., Quaremba, G., and Amoresano, A. (2009, January 17–19). A Study on Infrared Thermography Processed trough the Wavelet Transform. Proceedings of the 8th WSEAS International Conference on System Science and Simulation in Engineering, Genova, Italy. ICOSSSE.
20. Evaluation of coating thickness by thermal wave imaging: A comparative study of pulsed and lock-in infrared thermography—Part I: Simulation10.1016/j.infrared.2017.04.016 ↗
21. Optically and non-optically excited thermography for composites: A review10.1016/j.infrared.2015.12.026 ↗
22. Maldague, X., and Moore, P.O. (2001). ASNT Handbook. Infrared and Thermal Testing, ASNT Press.
23. Czichos, H. (2013). Handbook of Technical Diagnostics: Fundamentals and Application to Structures and Systems, Springer Science & Business Media.10.1007/978-3-642-25850-3 ↗
24. Shape identification problems on detecting of defects in a solid body using inverse heat conduction approach10.1007/s12206-012-0842-4 ↗
25. Meola, C., Boccardi, S., and Carlomagno, G.M. (2016). Infrared Thermography in the Evaluation of Aerospace Composite Materials: Infrared Thermography to Composites, Woodhead Publishing.10.1016/B978-1-78242-171-9.00003-6 ↗
26. Review and comparison of shearography and active thermography for nondestructive evaluation10.1016/j.mser.2008.11.001 ↗
27. Peeters, J., Steenackers, G., Sfarra, S., Legrand, S., Ibarra-Castanedo, C., Janssens, K., and Van Der Snickt, G. (2018). IR Reflectography and Active Thermography on Artworks: The Added Value of the 1.5–3 µm Band. Appl. Sci., 8.10.3390/app8010050 ↗
28. Ciampa, F., Mahmoodi, P., Pinto, F., and Meo, M. (2018). Recent Advances in Active Infrared Thermography for Non-Destructive Testing of Aerospace Components. Sensors, 18.10.3390/s18020609 ↗
29. An overview of corrosion defect characterization using active infrared thermography10.1016/j.infrared.2018.12.006 ↗
30. Detecting deeper defects using pulse phase thermography10.1016/j.infrared.2012.11.009 ↗
31. Ibarra-Castanedo, C., and Maldague, X.P. (2015). Review of Pulsed Phase Thermography. Thermosense: Thermal Infrared Applications XXXVII, International Society for Optics and Photonics.10.1117/12.2181042 ↗
32. Advances in pulsed phase thermography10.1016/S1350-4495(02)00138-X ↗
33. Chung, Y., Shrestha, R., Lee, S., and Kim, W. (2020). Thermographic Inspection of Internal Defects in Steel Structures: Analysis of Signal Processing Techniques in Pulsed Thermography. Sensors, 20.10.3390/s20216015 ↗
34. Ibarra-Castanedo, C. (2005). Quantitative Subsurface Defect Evaluation by Pulsed Phase Thermography: Depth Retrieval with the Phase, Faculty of Science and Engineering—Université Laval.
35. The use of infrared thermography for materials characterization10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2004.04.268 ↗
36. Principal Component Thermography for Flaw Contrast Enhancement and Flaw Depth Characterisation in Composite Structures10.1016/S0263-8223(02)00161-7 ↗
37. Gavrilov, D., and Maev, R. (2018). Extraction of Independent Structural Images for Principal Component Thermography. Appl. Sci., 8.10.3390/app8030459 ↗
38. Thomson, R.E., and Emery, W.J. (2014). Data Analysis Methods in Physical Oceanography, Elsevier Inc.. [3rd ed.].
39. Milovanović, B., Gaši, M., and Gumbarević, S. (2020). Principal Component Thermography for Defect Detection in Concrete. Sensors, 20.10.3390/s20143891 ↗
40. Reconstruction and enhancement of active thermographic image sequences10.1117/1.1566969 ↗
41. Automated Non-Destructive Inspection of Fused Filament Fabrica-tion Components using Thermographic Signal Reconstruction
42. The thermographic signal reconstruction method: A powerful tool for the enhancement of transient thermographic images10.1016/j.bbe.2014.07.002 ↗
43. Characterization of Defects of Pulsed Ther-mography Inspections by Orthogonal Polynomial Decomposition10.1016/j.ndteint.2017.05.003 ↗
44. Improvement of the Detection of Defects by Pulse Ther-mography Thanks to the TSR Approach in the Case of a Smart Composite Repair Patch10.3166/qirt.7.167-187 ↗
45. Comparative Study of Active Thermography Techniques for the Nondestructive Evaluation of Honeycomb Structures10.1080/09349840802366617 ↗
46. Advances in pulsed thermography10.1117/12.421032 ↗
47. Galmiche, F., and Maldague, X. (2000, January 18–21). Depth Defect Retrieval using the Wavelet Pulsed Phased Thermography. Proceedings of the 2000 International Conference on Quantitative InfraRed Thermography, Reims, France.10.21611/qirt.2000.036 ↗
48. Application of wavelet analysis in active thermography for non-destructive testing of CFRP composites
49. Experimental study of inspection on a metal plate with defect using ultrasound lock-in thermographic technique10.1016/j.infrared.2012.03.009 ↗
50. Wavelet transform applied to lock-in thermographic data for detection of inclusions in composite structures: Simulation and experimental studies10.1016/j.infrared.2018.11.008 ↗
51. Phase contrast using a differentiated absolute contrast method10.3166/qirt.3.219-230 ↗
52. Benitez, H., Maldague, X., Ibarra-Castanedo, C., Loaiza, H., Bendada, A., and Caicedo, E. (2006, January 7–10). Modified Differential Absolute Contrast using Thermal Quadrupoles for the Nondestructive Testing of Finite Thickness Specimens by Infrared Thermography. Proceedings of the 2006 Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ottawa, ON, Canada.10.1109/CCECE.2006.277741 ↗
53. González, D.A., Ibarra-Castanedo, C., Pilla, M., Klein, M., López-Higuera, J.M., and Maldague, X. (2004, January 5–8). Automatic Interpolated Differentiated Absolute Contrast Algorithm for the Analysis of Pulsed Thermographic Sequences. Proceedings of the 2004 International Conference on Quantitative InfraRed Thermography, Brussels, Belgium.10.21611/qirt.2004.014 ↗
54. A Brief Review and Advances of Thermographic Image—Processing Methods for IRT Inspection: A Case of Study on GFRP Plate10.1007/s40799-020-00414-4 ↗
55. Pilla, M., Klein, M., Maldague, X., and Salerno, A. (2002, January 24–27). New Absolute Contrast for Pulsed Thermography. Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Quantitative InfraRed Thermography, Collegium Ragusinum, Dubrovnik, Croatia.10.21611/qirt.2002.004 ↗
56. Modified Pulse-Phase Thermography Algorithms for Improved Con-trast-to-Noise Ratio from Pulse-Excited Thermographic Sequences10.1016/j.ndteint.2020.102325 ↗
57. Vavilov, V.P., Shiryaev, V.V., and Kuimova, M.V. (2018). Time- and Phase-Domain Thermal Tomography of Composites. Photonics, 5.10.3390/photonics5040031 ↗
58. Adaptive Spectral Band Inte-gration in Flash Thermography: Enhanced Defect Detectability and Quantification in Composites10.1016/j.compositesb.2020.108305 ↗
59. Candid covariance-free incremental principal component analysis10.1109/TPAMI.2003.1217609 ↗
60. Yousefi, B., Sharifipour, H.M., Castanedo, C.I., and Maldague, X.P.V. (May, January 30). Automatic IRNDT inspection applying sparse PCA-based clustering. Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE 30th Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering (CCECE), Windsor, ON, Canada.10.1109/CCECE.2017.7946755 ↗
61. Sparse Principal Component Thermography for Subsurface Defect Detection in Composite Products10.1109/TII.2018.2817520 ↗
62. Wen, C.-M., Sfarra, S., Gargiulo, G., and Yao, Y. (2019). Edge-Group Sparse Principal Component Thermography for Defect Detection in an Ancient Marquetry Sample. Proceedings, 27.10.3390/proceedings2019027034 ↗
63. Thermographic Data Analysis for Defect Detection by Imposing Spatial Connectivity and Sparsity Constraints in Principal Component Thermography10.1109/TII.2020.3010273 ↗
64. Liu, K., Ma, Z., Liu, Y., Yang, J., and Yao, Y. (2021). Enhanced Defect Detection in Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites via Generative Kernel Principal Component Thermography. Polymers, 13.10.3390/polym13050825 ↗
65. Measuring Heterogeneous Thermal Patterns in Infrared-Based Diagnostic Systems Using Sparse Low-Rank Matrix Approximation: Comparative Study
66. Low-rank sparse principal component thermography (sparse-PCT): Comparative assessment on detection of subsurface defects10.1016/j.infrared.2019.03.012 ↗
67. Independent component thermography for non-destructive testing of defects in polymer composites10.1088/1361-6501/ab02db ↗
68. Fleuret, J.R., Ebrahimi, S., Ibarra-Castanedo, C., and Maldague, X.P.V. (2021). Independent Component Analysis Ap-plied on Pulsed Thermographic Data for Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic Inspection: A Comparative Study. Appl. Sci., 11.10.3390/app11104377 ↗
69. Shepard, S.M., and Beemer, M.F. (2015). Advances in thermographic signal reconstruction. Thermosense: Thermal Infrared Applications XXXVII, International Society for Optics and Photonics.10.1117/12.2176748 ↗
70. Aspect Ratio Considerations for Flat Bottom Hole Defects in Active Thermography10.1080/17686733.2017.1328642 ↗
71. Schager, A., Zauner, G., Mayr, G., and Burgholzer, P. (2020). Extension of the Thermographic Signal Reconstruction Technique for an Automated Segmentation and Depth Estimation of Subsurface Defects. J. Imaging, 6.10.3390/jimaging6090096 ↗
72. Images of Thermographic Signal Reconstruction Coefficients: A Simple Way for Rapid and Efficient Detection of Discontinuities
73. Automatic Seeded Region Growing for Thermography Debonding Detection of CFRP10.1016/j.ndteint.2018.06.001 ↗
74. Shape reconstruction of delamination defects using thermographic infrared signals based on an enhanced Canny approach10.1016/j.infrared.2020.103527 ↗
75. Damage detection in circular cylindrical shells using active thermography and 2-D discrete wavelet analysis10.1016/j.tws.2018.12.028 ↗
76. Al-Rababah, K., Mustaffa, M.R., Doraisamy, S.C., and Khalid, F. (2021, January 15–16). Hybrid Discrete Wavelet Transform and Histogram of Oriented Gradients for Feature Extraction and Classification of Breast Dynamic Thermogram Sequences. Proceedings of the 2021 Fifth International Conference on Information Retrieval and Knowledge Management (CAMP), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.10.1109/CAMP51653.2021.9498028 ↗
77. Infrared Thermography-Based Fault Diagnosis of Induction Motor Bearings Using Machine Learning10.1109/JSEN.2020.3015868 ↗
78. Non-destructive testing and evaluation of materials using active thermography and enhancement of signal to noise ratio through data fusion10.1016/j.infrared.2018.08.027 ↗
79. Detectability of Subsurface Defects with Different Width-to-Depth Ratios in Concrete Structures Using Pulsed Thermography10.1007/s10921-018-0489-x ↗
80. Detection of Micro Solder Balls using Active Thermography Technology and K-Means Algorithm10.1109/TII.2018.2839614 ↗
81. The Influence of Ambient Environ-mental Conditions in Detecting Bridge Concrete Deck Delamination using Infrared Thermography (IRT)10.1002/stc.2506 ↗
82. Poelman, G., Segers, J., Poelman, G., Hedayatrasa, S., Segers, J., Paepegem, W.V., and Kersemans, M. (2019, January 11–13). Application of Flash Thermography and Advanced Post-Processing Techniques for Rapid NDT of CFRP Aircraft Com-ponent: A Case Study. Proceedings of the 11th Symposium on NDT in Aerospace, Saclay, France.
83. Fang, Q., and Maldague, X. (2020). A Method of Defect Depth Estimation for Simulated Infrared Thermography Data with Deep Learning. Appl. Sci., 10.10.20944/preprints202008.0565.v1 ↗
84. Fang, Q., Ibarra-Castanedo, C., and Maldague, X. (2021). Automatic Defects Segmentation and Identification by Deep Learning Algorithm with Pulsed Thermography: Synthetic and Experimental Data. Big Data Cogn. Comput., 5.10.3390/bdcc5010009 ↗
85. Deep learning for defect characterization in composite laminates inspected by step-heating thermography10.1016/j.optlaseng.2021.106679 ↗
86. Defect identification in composite materials via thermography and deep learning techniques10.1016/j.compstruct.2020.112405 ↗
87. Hu, J., Xu, W., Gao, B., Tian, G.Y., Wang, Y., Wu, Y., Yin, Y., and Chen, J. (2018). Pattern Deep Region Learning for Crack Detection in Thermography Diagnosis System. Metals, 8.10.3390/met8080612 ↗
88. Wei, Z., Fernandes, H., Herrmann, H.-G., Tarpani, J.R., and Osman, A. (2021). A Deep Learning Method for the Impact Damage Segmentation of Curve-Shaped CFRP Specimens Inspected by Infrared Thermography. Sensors, 21.10.3390/s21020395 ↗
89. Carvalho, R., Nascimento, R., D’Angelo, T., Delabrida, S., GC Bianchi, A., Oliveira, R.A., Azpúrua, H., and Uzeda Garcia, L.G. (2020). A UAV-Based Framework for Semi-Automated Thermographic Inspection of Belt Conveyors in the Mining Industry. Sensors, 20.10.3390/s20082243 ↗
90. Application of NDT Thermographic Imaging of Aerospace Structures10.1016/j.infrared.2019.02.002 ↗
91. Pant, S., Nooralishahi, P., Avdelidis, N.P., Ibarra-Castanedo, C., Genest, M., Deane, S., Valdes, J.J., Zolotas, A., and Maldague, X.P. (2021). Evaluation and Selection of Video Stabilization Techniques for UAV-Based Active Infrared Thermography Application. Sensors, 21.10.3390/s21051604 ↗
92. Remote sensing of concrete bridge decks using unmanned aerial vehicle infrared thermography10.1016/j.autcon.2017.06.024 ↗
93. Automatic Delamination Segmentation for Bridge Deck Based on Encod-er-Decoder Deep Learning through UAV-Based Thermography10.1016/j.ndteint.2020.102341 ↗
94. Diagnosis of composite materials in aircraft applications: Towards a UAV active thermography inspection approach
95. Lee, S., Chung, Y., Shrestha, R., and Kim, W. (2021). Automated Defect Detection Using Threshold Value Classification Based on Thermographic Inspection. Appl. Sci., 11.10.3390/app11177870 ↗
96. Application of thermal wave imaging and phase shifting method for defect detection in Stainless steel10.1016/j.infrared.2016.04.033 ↗
97. Fernandes, H.C., Zhang, H., Morioka, K., Ibarra-Castanedo, C., López, F., Maldague, X.P.V., and Tarpani, J. (2016). Infrared thermography for CFRP inspection: Computational model and experimental results. Thermosense: Thermal Infrared Applications XXXVIII, International Society for Optics and Photonics.10.1117/12.2223782 ↗
98. López, F., Sfarra, S., Ibarra-Castanedo, C., Paoletti, D., and Maldague, X. (2015). Integration of infrared and optical imaging techniques for the nondestructive inspection of aeronautic parts. Thermosense: Thermal Infrared Applications XXXVII, International Society for Optics and Photonics.10.1117/12.2177259 ↗
99. Wide-band IR imaging in the NIR-MIR-FIR regions for in situ analysis of frescoes
100. Comparative study for the nondestructive testing of advanced ceramic materials by infrared thermography and holographic interferometry10.1117/12.850742 ↗