IR thermograph inspection of adhesion integrity

The infrared thermography offers a flexible, non-contact and non-destructive tool for investigating the adhesion integrity in different applications. The IR thermography technique has been demonstrated to have wide applications to testing and quality assurance in automobile manufacturing processes. This paper addresses the capability of IR thermography in evaluating the adhesion integrity for two cases which occurred during automobile assembly processes. They are the coated surfaces adhesion integrity inspection and the adhesion strength in welded composite polymer plastic joints. Analytical models for the above two cases will be discussed in comparison to the corresponding thermographs. IR thermography technique can be used with one of or combination of the following mechanisms: the transmitted, the pulsed reflected signals. This paper discusses what type of processing scheme can be best applied to each of these signals.