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[?]Using a climate chamber

Last post 03-28-2009, 5:57 PM by John Snell. 5 replies.
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  •  03-27-2009, 3:29 AM 2799

    [?]Using a climate chamber

    Hello everyone,

    Recently I've been troubled with thoughts of how to setup an inspection array for viewing a specimen located in a temperature-controlled chamber (aka a climate chamber).

    The main difficulty will be keeping the specimen inside the closed chamber (allowing homogenous air-temperature and speciman stabilized temperature), and while at it - be able to have a shot with my IR camera.

    I've overulled the option to locate the camera inside the chamber, which reaches a 70 degrees Celsius in some cases.

    Many thanks in advance,

    Daniel

  •  03-27-2009, 7:50 AM 2800 in reply to 2799

    Re: [?]Using a climate chamber

    Good morning Daniel.  I'll offer the following suggestions with two disclaimers:

    1) my climate chamber work is cold, not warm; and

    2) though I work with heat and cold and use imaging as one of my sensors, I'm not a thermographer.

    That said, I'd suggest that, if you haven't already done so, you discuss your specific application with the manufacturer of your imager.  I came to understand that each imager deals with intrinsic sources of temperature error differently, and knowing what happens as you approach the ends of your imager's published envelope can affect how you set up your test. 

     In one of our low temperature cases, we had to leave the imager powered on in the conditions for 15 minutes to stablise and then had about a 10 minute window where we could use it before exceeding the manufacturer's recommendation for exposure to temp.  The concern expressed wasn't damage in my case, it was degradation of the data acquired by the imager.

    Second, our chamber itself was rich with with heat and cold sources whose reflections needed to be managed.  The smooth metal walls of the chamber didn't help. 

    I don't know how emissive your target is - in our case, we had bare metal plates for part of things, which required some creativity for dealing with reflections, establishing points of known temperature and high emissivity to 'calibrate' the image in post processing. We developed a combination of targets and logging thermistors that were time sequenced with the imager for some of the more difficult cases and were happy with the result.

    As I said, others with better experience and training will have better advice.  I hope this helps is some way.

    Cheers

    -john

  •  03-27-2009, 9:44 AM 2803 in reply to 2800

    Re: [?]Using a climate chamber

    Thank you for your reply

    Thank you for the tip about involving thermosistors (I will add thermocouples and synchronize them to the time the photos are taken).

    That said, I am still lacking a solution of shooting at high temperature environment.

    I've actually considered at some point to buy a Germanium window, but I overruled that option with the transmission of it being too low (and almost opaque) at high temperatures (up to 100 degrees celsius max).

  •  03-27-2009, 3:36 PM 2807 in reply to 2803

    Re: [?]Using a climate chamber

    There are many other crystalline materials that are transparent at that temperature in various wavebands. Not sure what your budget is or what other issues might be involved, such as pressure, moisture, etc., but you should be able to find solutions.
    Thermally Yours,

    John
    ASNT NDT Level III #48166
    The Snell Group
    www.thesnellgroup.com
    www.thermalsolutions.org
    800-636-9820
  •  03-28-2009, 3:33 AM 2812 in reply to 2807

    Re: [?]Using a climate chamber

    Thank you, John. This is indeed encouraging.

    With your expertise on the field, I would like to hear any idea you've ran into on that matter.

     Best regards.

  •  03-28-2009, 5:57 PM 2814 in reply to 2812

    Re: [?]Using a climate chamber

    Here is a previous thread with some good links and other information:

    http://www.irtalk.com/forums/thread/806.aspx

     


    Thermally Yours,

    John
    ASNT NDT Level III #48166
    The Snell Group
    www.thesnellgroup.com
    www.thermalsolutions.org
    800-636-9820
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