Exhausting work for thermal imager
A
Flir Systems product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Sep 4, 2003
Thermal imaging has increasingly become a key tool at Land Rover for the early identification and resolution of issues within the development process of vehicle systems.
Thermal imaging has increasingly become a key tool at Land Rover for the early identification and resolution of issues within the development process of vehicle systems.
And its most significant use is in the condition monitoring of exhaust components and systems while on extensive durability test.
The technique allows Land Rover to identify any degradation in component integrity and to abandon the costly test procedure if a fault is discovered.
Its recent investment in a Flir Systems ThermaCAM was primarily made to bring this facility in-house.
But Land Rover's choice of the top-of-the-range ThermaCAM S60 brought several additional benefits, one of which is the camera's capability of being remotely controlled in real time.
This is an important safety factor for Land Rover as it allows its engineers to examine an exhaust system in an engine test cell under full load.
The early identification of a problem in an exhaust system or component is essential.
Without thermography there would only be evidence of total failure at the end of test by which time the detail is usually lost.
As the test can now be stopped as soon as the problem is discovered, thermography is also saving on expensive testbed time.
Land Rover is also using its ThermaCAM S60 to map exhaust systems thermally.
Historically this would have entailed the use of significant numbers of thermocouples.
The S60 effectively provides thousands of data collection points that the company confirms, not only saves time but also achieves a resolution not viable previously.
The Researcher software also allows engineers to review the image and extract data, post test.
The features that proved decisive in Land Rover's choice of the ThermaCAM S60 were camera size, ease-of-use, remote operation capability, real-time monitoring, post-processing software, -40 to +1500C range and its sensitivity.
This palm-sized camera - and its maintenance counterpart the P60 - are the first infra-red systems to work in concert with reporting and database software to automate fully, the process of collecting, reporting and archiving infra-red images.
The S60 differs from the P60 in that it features IEEE1394 Firewire output and on-board burst recording.
The ThermaCAM's real-time imaging is important as the transient behaviour of an exhaust system is increasingly under scrutiny, especially in terms of the thermal management of a vehicle "underbonnet".
It allows Land Rover to understand the topography of component bulk material temperature changes and thermal hysteresis.
In more mundane operation, it can stabilise the test bed conditions and capture the image quicker because the company is no longer reliant upon watching a thermocouple trace before commencing imaging.
The camera also allows Land Rover to pick up thermal features during the bed stabilisation and investigate those features in real time with the testbed operator.
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