Quantification of defects depth in glass fiber reinforced plastic plate by infrared lock-in thermography

The increasing use of composite materials in various industries has evidenced the need for development of more effective nondestructive evaluation methodologies in order to reduce rejected parts and to optimize production cost. Infrared thermography is a noncontact, fast and reliable non-destructive evaluation technique that has received vast and growing attention for diagnostic and monitoring in the recent years. This paper describes the quantitative analysis of artificial defects in Glass fiber reinforced plastic plate by using Lockin infrared thermography. The experimental analysis was performed at several excitation frequencies to investigate the sample ranging from 2.946 Hz down to 0.019 Hz and the effects of each excitation frequency on defect detachability. The four point method was used in post processing of every pixel of thermal images using the MATLAB programming language. The relationship between the phase contrast with defects depth and area was examined. Finally, phase contrast method was used to calculate the defects depth considering the thermal diffusivity of the material being inspected and the excitation frequency for which the defect becomes visible. The obtained results demonstrated the effectiveness of Lock-in infrared thermography as a powerful measurement technique for the inspection of Glass fiber reinforced plastic structures.