by John Voitl
Predictive Maint. Tech.
Coors Brewing Co.
Golden, Co

I have a VFD salesman friend who was having trouble with a customer. The customer has a drive in a hot area that occasionally trips with an overheat indication. The customer was taking the temperature of the aluminum heat sink with an inexpensive non contact thermometer, and obviously, it was reading low. He asked me for an explanation. This article was created to demonstrate low emissivity and high reflectivity, and their effects on temperature measurement with infrared thermometers.

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Last month ITC Americas moved into new custom built headquarters at 25 Esquire Rd in Billerica, MA. The second week of May we held our first training course. The facilities include a main classroom (with stadium seating so everybody gets a good view), application lab, conference/secondary classroom, student break area, cafeteria, and of course ITC staff offices.

The main classroom features the latest in
multimedia, connectivity, and stadium seating.

Students in the main classroom are provided with power, internet connectivity, and video/computer monitors so they can practice on their camera without having to use the eyepiece. Students also have access to computers at their seats so they can learn and practice producing reports and analyzing thermal images.

  
The application lab features over 15 work stations where
students can practice on real equipment with simulated problems.

The application lab includes building science, piping, motors and couplings, electronic, and of course electrical lab stations. A variety of problems are simulated for the students to find and measure. Many labs are instrumented with thermocouples so temperatures can be compared with the infrared camera readings.

If you are looking to get some thermography training, put our Boston facility at the top of your list, you'll be glad you came!

Straight from the World Wide Web, here is what's going on in the world of infrared thermography.

• Military Tool Could Fight Breast Cancer
  NBC4.TV, CA - May 30, 2006
  LOS ANGELES -- NBC4's Dr. Bruce Hensel looked at an old military technology that may become the newest medical tool in the fight against breast cancer. ...

• Understanding the Threat of Laminitis
  BloodHorse, KY - May 24, 2006
  As mentioned in previous articles, Barbaro may be susceptible to other complications during his recovery because of the severity of his injury. ...

• Fugitive Emissions and Motor Vehicle Refueling Observation Study
  TCEQ staff conducted a study using an infrared camera to observe emissions from a variety of potential sources at a gasoline dispensing facility. Page down to the bottom and you'll see where you can view the GasFindIR video supporting this study...

• Geek Tech: JPL Opens House
  LAVoice.org, CA - May 21, 2006
  First up outside the Microdevices Laboratory - fun with a thermal imaging camera. Just apply a little ice to the eyebrows and forehead ... ...

• High Tech Helps Find Underground Fires
  Central Florida News 13, FL - May 21, 2006
  ... night. But the infrared camera displays the hottest images as a bright white, which crews say makes spotting danger much easier.

• Da Vinci broken by the code
  The Herald, UK - May 21, 2006
  ... Seeking further instances of Leonardo's genius, Seracini chose to focus such techniques as thermal imaging on two other works: a partially lost mural depicting ...

• Chief Mines Inspector Leads Sullivan Mine Investigation
  WebWire (press release), GA - May 19, 2006
  ... of the reclamation plans and any work on site as it pertains to this incident, including chemical analysis by a specialist, and thermal imaging tests, all to ...

• Radiometric jpeg thermal image storage introduced
  Manufacturing Talk, UK - May 18, 2006
  ... FLIR Systems offers radiometric jpeg image storage as upgrade to InfraCAM and BCAM thermal imagers temperature measurement of any pixel to be made after the image has been saved....

• Who Owns Your Horse's X-rays?
  Practical Horseman Magazine - May 11, 2006
  ... X rays, ultrasound, scintigraphy, thermography and other diagnostic technology all produce valuable information about your horse's health, and diagnostic ...

• Nondestructive Testing Broadens Its Scope
  High Performance Composites - May 10, 2006
  ... One is thermography, which uses infrared energy to heat a laminate so that infrared sensing technology can read variations in the heat emitted from voids and ...

• Declassified Infrared Tech Can Save Home Buyers Thousands
  Local6.com, FL - May 1, 2006
  New declassified technology from the defense industry can help save home buyers from shoddy construction by using infrared thermography to locate structural ...

Here is a selection of recent new threads by IR Community members. Feel free to click the links, see how people have responded, and post your own response if you like.

• Copper roof issue
  ......The images I took are perplexing. The mill finish panels appear to be reflecting deep space (the sky) at the camera and giving a reading <-4 and the older roof with a black oxide is giving a temp of ~31 degrees. The mill finish I can understand. It probably has a emissivity of 0.05 and reflectance of .95! But the black copper oxide panels are bugging me. The air temp was 58.6 degrees and RH of 56% yet they are giving a temp of 31?
  
  Am I getting an emissivity from the panels and some reflectance from space too, causing them to appear to be so cold? "super cooling" of roof membranes typically will be 5 to 10 degrees below air temp but below freezing?

• Zyp coatings ZO Mod Black high-temperature, high-emissivity paint
  would like to know if anyone has experience with Zyp coatings ZO Mod Black high-temp, high-emissivity paint or can recommend a paint that is both high-temperature and high-emissivity. I would like to be able to paint the inside of a furnace (operating temperature ~1800 deg. C) and use it as a blackbody calibration target. Thanks for your input.

• Need feedback on Aluminum coated roofs
  Need feedback on any tricks of the trade for scanning roof systems with aluminum coatings.
  
  
  
   

• Motor "J" boxes
  I've seen posts and heard of people scanning motors and connections in motor j boxes.
  My question is how are they scanning the j boxes? Are they removing the covers while the motor is running? If this is the case, it seams to be an unsafe practice. I would like to scan these but I'm not sure on how to go about it. Any input would be appreciated.

• Reflected Apparent Temperature
  If a person is inspecting an electrical HV OVERHEAD LINE from the ground, where can they measure the Refl App Temp reflected by the surroundings off the target into the Camera as indicated in the Image attached. Will it be from the sky, or the sun or....... What will it be?

And of course if YOU have a question or want to start a discussion on a topic, we would love to hear from you. Just post a new thread on a message board.

Brainteaser of the Month 

Here is this month's brainteaser. Readers who email us the correct identification and explanation of the thermal pattern in the thermogram are entered into a drawing to win a prize from ITC.

Please put "Brainteaser" as the subject of the message.

Click here to email your guess

Do you have an interesting image that you think would challenge other thermographers? If so please email me your image (preferably in native .img, .jpg, .tif, .tgw, or .tmw format) with an accompanying visible photo and explanation. If your image is used, you receive a gift as well.

Last Month's Brainteaser

Wow! Last month's image really stumped our readers. We had guesses ranging from a cotton candy machine and Wicked Witch of the West to a cone bearing heater! The truth is much simpler as Coen Boonen, our thermogram contributor, explains:

"Drilling a hole in a gasoline tank; the tank is split in to two pieces and we are looking at the inside."

Unfortunately there wasn't a winner last month, so I am awarding a prize to the most creative answer............... and that goes to Jamie Dugan for his "Wicked Witch of the West" guess. Jamie and Coen both get low emissivity mugs!

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