Applications of IR Imagery to Thermal Evaluations

IR imagery has been used for some time as a thermal measurement and analysis tool. Modern scanners can provide transient temperature profiles of surfaces and gases with good accuracy and resolution. The geometric continuity and quick response of the output data offer significant advantages over discrete forms of instrumentation, such as thermocouples. In addition, temperature measurements of surfaces exposed to harsh or violent environments pose significant problems and expense. These problems can often be easily handled with remote sensing equipment. At Grumman, this approach has been applied to several specific thermal evaluations for some of our aircraft programs. This paper describes three such applications, and includes the resulting data and evaluations.