Towards a Hybrid Infrared Approach for Damage Assessment

Abstract

The thermoelastic response obtained from an infra-red (IR) detector contains two components: the magnitude of the small stress induced temperature change caused by the thermoelastic effect and the phase angle of the temperature change relative to a reference signal generated by an application of a stress change. The phase angle is related to nonlinearity in the thermoelastic response and departures from the simple linear relationship that underpins thermoelastic stress analysis (TSA). The phase data could be used to make an assessment of temperature evolutions caused by viscoelastic behaviour resulting from damage and provide a basis for its evaluation. In the current paper the physics of other infra-red techniques used for non-destructive evaluation is used to better understand the nature of the thermoelastic response. The objective is to provide better exploitation of TSA by alternative processing of the IR measurements. Three case studies are presented that demonstrate the potential of the alternative processing for evaluating damage.