ThermoSense XXII Conference 

Featured  NDT in Aerospace Applications

Herb Kaplan

ThermoSense XXII, twenty-second in a series of conferences dedicated to commercial applications of infrared thermography, was held in Orlando, April 25-28, 2000, as a component of the annual AeroSense meeting, sponsored by SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering. 

Ralph B. Dinwiddie of Oak Ridge National Laboratory chaired this year’s conference. As part of the featured aerospace theme, Douglas Burleigh of BFGoodrich Aerospace moderated an expert panel on the subject.  Discussions addressed huge current and potential savings in testing costs as well as numerous safety issues, including increasing concerns about untested aging aircraft wiring. As in the past, ThermoSense XXIII Proceedings will be available on site at the time of the conference.

Attendance at AeroSense exceeded 4000, and the five ThermoSense sessions featured outstanding practical applications papers, most of which packed the lecture hall.  The sessions were reinforced by informal topical workshops, where speakers were available for in-depth discussions of their work.

New ThermoSense-related short courses on New Night Vision Applications, Active IRNDT Techniques and Industrial Applications were exceptionally well attended.

The Andronicos G. Kantsios award for best paper, sponsored this year by the Infrared Training Center, was presented to G.R. (Ray) Peacock of LTV Steel Technology Center for his paper "Thermal Imaging of Liquid Steel and Slag in a Pouring Stream”.  Mr. Peacock gave last year’s keynote address on IR Imaging in the Metals Industry.  Other outstanding papers reported on such diverse applications as aerial surveying of transmission lines and power plant effluents, high speed monitoring of automotive brakes, high intensity lamp temperature measurement and thermal imaging of the effects of odentology acupuncture.

In the exhibit hall attendees were excited by the unveiling of an Infrared FPA camera about the size of a camcorder battery and weighing less than 200 grams (7 ounces).  Also on display were the driver’s-aid night vision system featured in the 2000 Cadillac-the first ever, mass consumer application for night vision, the new FireFLIR firefighter’s helmet-mounted infrared viewer and a score of new compact, low-cost thermal imagers based on the new IR focal plane array technology. 

Next year’s conference, ThermoSense XXIII, will be held again in Orlando on April 16-19, 2001 and chaired by Andres E. Rozlosnik of SI Termografia Infrarroja (Argentina). Email <aer@termografia.com>

Topical applications workshops are an integral part of the ThermoSense program.  A workshop is planned at the close of each ThermoSense session.  Currently the topics are:

·         Infrastructure and the Environment

·         Products and Processes

·         Predictive Maintenance

·         NDT  and Materials Evaluation

Workshops allow the interchange of applications information in an informal setting, free of the time and structural restrictions of the formal sessions. 

Related short course topics planned for next year include Active IRNDT Techniques, Industrial Applications, Advanced Thermography Techniques and IR Night Vision Field Applications (Law enforcement, firefighting, safety and rescue).

Calls for papers for ThermoSense XXIII will be available by May 15, 2000.  More information on the ThermoSense Conference is available at http://www.ThermoSense.org. 

Last Updated on 08 March 2001
By R. B. Dinwiddie