Thermography - Principles and measurements

Infrared thermography is a special case of thermography, even if it is the best-known and most widespread. Originally (1970), the term "infrared" was added to "thermography" to distinguish it from contact thermography techniques. Here, we'll focus on a broader spectrum of radiation.

We'll focus on the differences between simple thermal imaging and measurement thermography, the latter being the focus of this article.

Until 1995, presenting thermal imaging cameras as "black boxes" to be characterized as such was a justified approach, given that they belonged to a single technological family. This avoided exposing peculiarities that had no primary impact on the equipment's characteristics. In a second article, we look at recent radiation detector technologies and their implications.

We will do our utmost to comply with the standards for infrared thermography (NF A 09-400, NF A 09-420 and NF A 09-421).

We will be using the VIM – vocabulaire international de métrologie (JCGM 200:2012) and the radiation standard (NF ISO 80000-7).