Services

Electrical Inspections with thermal imaging

 Significantly reduce unscheduled power outages
 Detect problems quickly, without interrupting service
 Assess priorities for corrective action
 Minimize preventive maintenance and troubleshooting time
 Comply with insurance company requirements and reduce premiums
 Check for defective equipment while still under manufacturer warranty

Research and Development

For scientific research and product development, thermography offers unique possibilities. In research, its
applications are endless. In product development, an important example is for design verification.

Electronic Equipment
 Printed circuit board evaluation and troubleshooting
 Thermal mapping of semiconductor device services
 Circuit board component evaluation
 Production-type inspection of bonded structures
 Inspection of hybrid microcircuits
 Inspection of solder joints

Automotive Applications
 Motor racing suspension and tire contact diagnostics
 Brake and engine systems evaluation for performance and cooling efficiencies

Condition Based Maintenance

Infrared thermography is used for Condition Monitoring, CM, to optimize maintenance and keep production running
smoothly and safely, at the lowest possible cost.

Here are some areas where thermography is used for condition monitoring:

Electrical Systems
 Power generation inspections including exciters, 4160 connections, motor control centers and isophase bus
ducts
 Substation Electrical inspections including switchgear, breakers, transformers and capacitor banks
 Overhead urban and rural distribution electrical inspections
 Electrical motor inspections
 High voltage Aerial Electrical inspections for transmission lines

Mechanical Systems

 Boilers - inspect burners for flame impingement and burner management. Look at combustion patterns on boiler
tubes and measure tube skin temperature during normal operation or when boiler is on standby. Scan and
record temperatures in areas of boiler not monitored. Scan the exterior of boiler for refectory damage or locate
warmer areas where potential refectory damage may occur.
 Detect coke buildup in crude oil furnaces
 Power Plant boiler flue gas leak detection
 Mechanical bearing inspections
 Gearbox monitoring and analysis
 Heat ventilation air conditioning equipment evaluation
 Cold Storage cooling losses
 Detect insulation leaks in refrigeration equipment

Building Envelopes and Structures

 Thermal heat loss inspections for buildings, plants, facilities, refineries
 Moisture contamination evaluations in buildings, condo's, plants facilities
 Concrete integrity inspections
 Concrete water heated floor inspections for leaks and temperature distribution
 Locate missing or damaged insulation
 Identify air leakage
 Evaluate the thermal performance of retrofits
 Locate radiant heating wires or pipes
 Detect delaminations in concrete bridge deck

Roofing Systems
 Flat roof leak detection for buildings, plants, facilities
 Identify water damaged portions of a roof quickly and accurately
 Eliminate unnecessary replacement of good roofing
 Plan accurate budgets based on facts
 Document problems before the warranty/bond expires

Petrochemical Applications

 Refinery process line insulation loss or leak detection

 Refinery process evaluation
 Heat exchanger Quality and efficiency evaluation
 Furnace refractory (insulation) inspections
 Furnace Internal flame evaluation and tube inspections
 Flame propagation explosion analysis
Steam Turbine and Hydroelectric Generators
 Locate inter-laminar faults in stator cores
 Monitor the effectiveness of repairs to the damaged areas
 Help maintain quality control during a stator core repair
 Obtain a thermal image of the stator core that serves as a permanent record of the condition of the stator core
following repairs

Veterinary
The non-invasiveness of thermography makes it very useful and completely harmless in medical applications. An
animal cannot tell you where it hurts, so for the veterinarian, thermography is a valuable tool.

 Sports injuries evaluation, and therapy progress

 Equine (horse) injury examination, stress fractures, lameness

Quality Control and Process Monitoring

Infrared cameras are quickly becoming more and more common in factories, for quality control and continuous
measurement of temperature in the production process.

Pulp and Paper example.

 Detect uneven heat distribution in Fourdrinier steam boxes
 Identify wet streaks, non-uniformity, that can have adverse effects on paper quality
 Identify basis weight variations
 Monitor size press performance
 Analyze dryer temperature to look for non-uniformity in dryers
 Monitor coating to see that it is being applied uniformly to surface of the paper
 Analyze reel to find anomalies that may be induced by pieces of process equipment connected to the paper
machine
 Inspect chip piles for hot spots

Non-destructive Testing
Thermal radiation is always emitted from the surface, but with a bit of imaginative work with thermography, we can
actually located faults beneath the surface.

Aerospace Applications

 Water ingress in airplane control surfaces and radomes

 Tire and brake system diagnosis
 Windshield and wing surface deicing system diagnosis
 Stress crack and corrosion identification and location
 Jet and rocket engine analysis
 Composite materials delamination and disbonding location
 Target signature analysis

Environmental Applications
Thermography can be a great aid for monitoring and tracking pollutants from a variety of sources.

 Locate old waste disposal sites

 Locate old buried tanks on industrial sites
 Locate and monitor oil spills

Airborne Applications
 Pipeline inspection, leak detection, stress corrosion cracking areas
 Environmental inspections, pollution dumping, thermal dumping of waste water
 Fire mapping, hold over fires, fire line and mop-up inspections
 Search and rescue
 Covert surveillance

Miscellaneous Applications
 Detect RF heating in antennas, wave guides, guy wire and frame structures
 Locate low-intensity sleeper fires on forest lands
 Locate lost people
 Remote sensing applications
 Firefighting - locate people in burning buildings and navigate through smoke

Predictive, Preventive, Reactive: RWE

Power International Applies Thermal
Imaging for Inspection Solutions of its
UK Power Stations
RWE Power International is one of the largest European power
producers and part of RWE, a leading European utility group
providing services in electricity, gas and water. RWE Power
International provides engineering support to power plant
operators, extensively and creatively applying infrared technology
and utilizing FLIR Systems ThermaCAM™ S-series infrared cameras
for non-destructive evaluation and examination (NDE) applications.
RWE Power International is a collaboration between "RWE npower", which supplies gas
and electricity to 6.2 million customers in Britain, and RWE Power’s consulting subsidiary
RE GmbH (the former Rheinraun Engineering). As an in-house consultancy, RWE Power
International supports npower’s portfolio of low-cost coal, oil and gas-fired power stations
and renewable energy production with operation and maintenance support. In addition,
RWE Power International offers its extensive support and consultancy services to external
customers operating power plants across the world. With a 100,000 man-years project
experience for over 200 customers, the organization’s knowledge spans every aspect of
owning and operating fossil fuel, gas and renewable energy power plants.

Heating, self-combustion monitoring in power station coal stock

Inspection Management, Plant Life & Integrity

RWE Power International’s Inspection Management group (IM), offers Non Destructive
Testing, Evaluation and Examination (NDE) services. Its experts not only choose and
determine the validation technologies needed to inspect or assess plant condition but also
advise engineers on the application and capabilities of NDE methods and techniques.

Infrared thermography is a key tool to inspect and assess power plant condition.
Thermography inspections are conducted to safeguard thermal efficiency of vital plant
areas; from monitoring the coal stock on self-combustion to complex applications such as
turbine assessment. Given its experience with plant and operational regimes, IM
consistently develops and fine-tunes its thermography techniques and applications. “Our
approach is that of an end user, not a manufacturer and this difference influences
everything that we do for clients,” says Richard Day, NDT Engineer with responsibility for
thermographic applications at the IM group.

Assessing Pipework Systems

A typical application would be the monitoring of a plant’s elaborate piping system in
general and the high-energy pipework systems in particular. These pipes carry the
superheated steam to the turbine. At a typical wall thickness of 6 to 9 cm, they have to be
able to withstand steam heated over 500 °C at a pressure of 158 bar. Regular
thermography inspections are carried out to check the insulation and identify excessive
temperature gradients.

“Good pipework insulation not only improves thermal insulation but also substantially
reduces risks of thermal fatigue which can cause cracks in the pipes” says Richard Day.

Generator stator core flux test; ThermaCAM™ S60 proves integrity of stator core plates

Improving Turbine Efficiency

The steam turbine/generator is at the heart of electricity generation. It consists of a
combination of high pressure, intermediate pressure and low pressure rotors directly
coupled to a generator rotor. The rotating mass of this arrangement can exceed 200
tonnes on large units which rotate at 3000rpm. The generator rotor rotates within a fixed
stator. The stator core is constructed of insulated thin steel plates to prevent large
circulating currents/ core losses. If sufficient accidental contacts between adjacent plates
occur in service, currents can start to flow, which can cause potentially dangerous local
hot spots within the core.

Coupling infrared technology with an innovative and a sound approach, RWE International
has set up an efficient technique to detect the integrity of the stator core plates. IM
specialists constructed a 90° conical infrared reflector from polished stainless steel, a
highly infrared reflective material, and placed it on a plastic guide tube positioned
centrally within the stator core to allow a perpendicular view of the stator core surfaces.
The guide tube is hollow to allow energizing cables to pass through its core.

An insulated 16mm single core cable is then threaded

through the guide tube to achieve 12 turns and the
core energized up to 3.3 kV to produce the rated flux
levels within the stator core. After a period of time, (to
allow any induced heating within the stator core to
manifest itself at the core surface through conduction),
the IR reflector is drawn through the core. The IR
camera, aFLIR Systems ThermaCAM S60 infrared
camera with an optical 12° zoom lens, positioned on a
tripod approximately 2.5m from the stator core, Richard Day, NDT Engineer
monitors the image of the core diameter reflected onto resp. for thermographic
applications at RWE Power
the conical reflector. The captured images are passed
International
through the FLIR System ThermaCAM Researcher
Processing software and then submitted for analysis to
the electrical engineering staff. This original stator core
flux test technique can prove the integrity of the stator
core plates both at the manufacturing stage and during
its service life.

While pointing to the importance of reporting in a professional and responsible manner

and conducting trial and validation tests, Richard Day stresses the need to engage in
dialogue with customers, explaining that they can assist in the right interpretation of the
images due to specific knowledge of their plant and operational processes. “It’s important
to listen and recognize what the customer needs, not what you think he wants”, he says.

Only then infrared thermography can become a powerful and efficient non-contact and
non destructive inspection tool able to provide a clear picture of what’s happening
thermally to boilers, turbines and feed system components and allowing engineering staff
to make judgments and corrective action before equipment failure.