IR camera chosen as teaching tool

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jul 4, 2007

A titanium 560MB IR camera system from Cedip Infrared Systems is being used as a teaching tool by the Engineering and Design faculty at the Swansea Institute.

A titanium 560MB IR camera system from Cedip Infrared Systems has been selected by the Engineering and Design faculty at the Swansea Institute to provide consultative services to local industry in South Wales and to be used as a teaching tool for students involved with a new MSc course in nondestructive testing.

The new Masters degree, validated by the University of Wales, starting in October 2007 is the only MSc course in nonDestructive Testing (NDT) in the UK.

The Swansea Institute is the lead academic partner in the NDT Validation Centre, and through this partnership has developed strong links with The Welding Institute (TWI) - an internationally renowned research organisation.

Using its expertise in NDT, the Swansea Institute has also developed a reputation for studying the properties of architectural glass and is often called upon to offer consultative services to the large Welsh automotive component supplier community.

Kelvin Donne, Dean of the Engineering and Applied Design faculty at the Swansea Institute, said "For the wide range of NDT applications we envisaged undertaking we required a very flexible IR camera, that reliably delivered the highest sensitivity, accuracy, spatial resolution and speed".

"After reviewing available options we selected the Titanium 560MB IR camera system from Cedip Infrared Systems as it offered the perfect solution at an affordable price".

He added " The technology and applications of nondestructive testing are wide ranging and constantly evolving".

"Major fields of application include the automotive and aerospace industries, gas and energy generation, chemical industries, space technology, rail transport, shipping and manufacturing".

"With other applications constantly emerging the combination of compactness, high-performance and a removable lens interface offered by the Titanium 560MB gives us the flexibility to cope with the demands of these new measurements".

Titanium IR systems are available with a broad range of detectors including state of the art InSb, MCT or QWIP focal plane array detectors that achieve sensitivity of less than 18mK even at the highest frame rates in both the MWIR and LWIR domains.

Built for operational flexibility the Titanium IR system is programmable from 1Hz to 380Hz in full frame mode, offers a sub-array windowing mode with integration time adjustable in 1us increments and smart external triggering capability synchronising image capture to even the most fleeting events.

Titanium IR systems offer true plug and play compatibility with standard computers as well as third-party frame grabbers and image processing software.

Using either Camlink, USB2.0 or GigE interfaces the Titanium is able to transmit commands and transfer video images at 40MHz pixel rate and full 14-bit dynamic range.

Comprehensive image analysis software dedicated to thermal measurement comes as standard.