Techniques for Evaluating the Depth of a Crack by Means of Laser Spot Thermography

Abstract

Laser Spot Thermography is a useful tool in nondestructive crack detection. Our goal is to estimate the depth of a fracture from external thermal measurements. First we transform a set of real 3D data in a 2D effective one. Then we use the 2D data set as input in different methods for solving an inverse problems for the heat equation. Our guiding idea is that an effort in the direction of the mathematical analysis of the problem, rewards us in term of computational costs.

Keywords

• laser-spot thermography
• inverse problems
• cracks