THERMAL IMAGING ANALYSIS OF MATERIAL STRUCTURES AND DEFECTS

A numerical one‐dimensional (1D) heat‐transfer model was developed to simulate the surface temperature response under one‐sided pulsed thermal imaging for plate samples with internal material variations including different optical and thermal properties, multilayer structures, and defect distributions (delaminations). The simulation results showed the complexity and subtle differences of the thermal imaging response to the material variations. With further development in data processing technologies, it is expected that thermal imaging may be used to detect and predict these material property variations.