Case Studies and Customer References

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) offer a wide range of possible applications in the field of nanotechnology. Everyday examples are the position recognition of mobile phones and the use in airbags, digital cameras or pacemakers. Other applications can be found above all in the field of miniaturised medical diagnostics. Growing demands on miniaturisation affect both the system solutions required for this and the sensors and control elements to be developed.

Wood pellets as an alternative and high-quality fuel have become increasingly important in recent years. Their local origin from sustainable cultivation in the region has given WUN Bioenergie GmbH the opportunity to respond to market demand as an environmentally friendly supplier of raw materials. However, like other fuels, stored wood pellets need to be secured and monitored around the clock to prevent causes of devastating damage in the event of a fire, for example. Robust and reliable thermography solutions are a suitable tool for plant protection here.

The Amager Resource Center (ARC) is a waste incinerator like no other. From the roof of the Waste to Energy facility, skiers and snowboarders wind their way down on green plastic mats from a height of about 80 meters, even in the summer. The city hall of the Danish capital, Copenhagen, is just five kilometres away. The location, which is almost in the heart of a European capital, as well as its use as a public leisure centre, shows how much confidence operators place in the safety of the ARC. An important component in the security concept is the WASTE-SCAN infrared monitoring system for early fire detection by InfraTec.

Anyone who wants to produce curved or twisted steel and aluminium components, can rely on bending forging nowadays. Components with complex geometries can now be manufactured by means of this incremental forging variant.

Many tons of waste are bunkered and processed every day in waste recycling plants. It is not uncommon for this to contain highly flammable materials. If ignition sources get into this storage area, for example during delivery, there is an acute risk of fire. Therefore, waste incineration plants are subject to the strictest fire protection requirements in order to prevent endangering the environment and local residents. For this reason, an extremely important preventive measure is the permanent monitoring of the waste bunker and, if necessary, the surrounding areas.

Technical systems and devices are often subject to the influence of thermal energy or heat up due to internal processes. Their efficiency and service life can be increased, for example, by optimised thermal management. The installed active components are usually optimised extensively for this purpose. Passive components, on the other hand, are often neglected in this respect.

Since the end of 2010, the “Arab Spring” has significantly changed the political situation in some countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East. The related political and social upheavals had been initiated in Tunisia. To support the fragile democracy in a politically controversial area of conflict – located next door to countries like Libya and Algeria – the German Federal Foreign Office started to establish a governmental relief program for the Tunisian security authorities.

Epoxy resin systems are mostly used as a matrix material in fibre composites. In a variety of manufacturing processes, the corresponding resin system is processed in a flowable state. The material only acquires its rigidity in a subsequent curing process. This is characterized by an exothermic chemical reaction with a pronounced temperature dependence.

New materials with precisely controlled optical and thermal transport characteristics can make a large contribution to resource-saving thermal management. Scientists of the University of Bayreuth are pursuing this vision. They use infrared thermography to quantitatively determine thermal conductivity in nano- and mesostructured polymer materials.

Miscellaneous welding tasks in steel constructions currently have a low degree of automation, resulting in a high amount of manual work and employee-dependent quality levels. As part of the 3dStahl collaborative project, a 6-axis robot, equipped with a welding machine, was attached upside down to a wall-to-wall wire rope hoist kinematics system in order to automate joining processes involving small quantities or even individual parts such as large-scale objects (lock gates, bridges).

District heating is generally regarded as an extremely efficient and environmentally friendly form of energy supply. Based on industrial waste heat or renewable energy sources, it offers the possibility of heating water and thus supplying private, commercial and industrial customers. Netze Duisburg GmbH is doing to control the city's entire district heating network supported by InfraTec infrared cameras.

Lasers are extremely versatile tools in industry and manufacturing technology. Due to their flexibility, they serve as a key technology for implementing the goals of industry 4.0. Although laser cutting and welding are nowadays regarded as turnkey technologies, the majority of laser applications, for example joining of hybrid materials, 3D printing or ultra-short pulse processing, still require considerable research and development.

What will the energy supply of the future look like? The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald is dealing with this question.

Today's power and heating supply in the city of Bern is hardly imaginable without the Forsthaus energy centre (Energiezentrale Forsthaus – EZF). This power plant combines a refuse incineration plant (KVA) with a wood heating power plant and a combined gas‐steam power plant. The Swiss company relies on the WASTE‐SCAN infrared monitoring system from InfraTec for the early fire detection.

The generation of electricity power produced by wind turbines is expanding worldwide. This development is associated directly with an increasing demand to test the product reliability, functionality and life durability of wind turbine subsystems like the drive train.

The combination of measuring results from the digital image correlation (ARAMIS, DIC) and temperature measuring data from infrared cameras permits the simultaneous analysis of the thermal and mechanical behavior of test specimens in the materials and components testing field.

Many new systems operate at very high laser intensity levels and consequently require close control of thermal processes. This is achieved by the use of infrared thermography which is both contact-less and provides imagery.

How do solid materials change structurally? The engineers Prof. Stefan Seelecke and Marvin Schmidt from Saarland University investigate this fundamental question in materials research. Both consider this topic with the help of microthermography. Their cutting-edge basic research ensures that we will have even more energy-efficient electric devices to use at home in future.

Climate research is one of the most exposed types of academic research these days. With the continuous discussion about extreme weather events and long-term implications of human-made climate factors the related science has become a part of everyone´s daily life.

Mechanically stressed car components like tires are a continuous issue for quality inspection and related R&D improvements. At Bridgestone Corporation in Hofu (Yamaguchi prefecture in South-Western Japan) new test procedures for off-the-road tires for construction and mining vehicles (OR tires) had to be developed to meet the literally growing scale of performance concerning the carrying capacity.

Non-destructive testing methods are becoming increasingly more important in the industry. One reason is that they cost much less than other test methods. As a very elegant method, the active heat flow thermography method is now firmly established as a powerful method of non-contact and non-destructive testing of products of different manufacturing technologies.

Due to the decreasing number of suitable locations for wind turbines and the increasing push towards renewable energy sources, new activities have been introduced to improve the efficiency of rotor blades for wind turbines.

Stress changes during tensile testing provide information about material properties of metals such as tensile strength. With the help of thermographic cameras metallic solid bodies can be tested for such stress changes.

At the same time that the performance of electronic components is being driven ever higher the demand for thermal management at ever smaller scales is also occurring.

With infrared thermography, absolute temperatures, temperature distributions and relative temperature changes can be measured and tracked within dynamic conditions. 

2012 marked an important milestone for the Eastern European Countries of Poland and the Ukraine – the jointly rganized UEFA European Football Championship 2012. While this kind of events generate a wide public attraction there are certain background activities which contribute to a seamless progress significantly: Security and logistics are two core tasks to be handled by the relevant local authorities. 

A ladle typically contains up to 290 tonnes of hot, liquid steel when it is transporting the melted good to the continuous caster. Ladle-temperature measurements with contact-free infrared thermography are an ideal basis for the early detection of impending breakage.

Quality assurance and process enhancement is essential to complex industrial processes. Leading businesses rely on certified quality management, to allow for matters of quality and environmental sustainability even during the early stages of manufacturing development. In co‐operation with a leading automotive supplier, InfraTec GmbH enhanced the automated thermography monitoring solution PRESS‐CHECK to inspect the product quality of press hardening with an accuracy of 100 %.

At Delphi’s laboratory plant “Test & Validation Services”, thermography is used for design and product validation as part of quality assurance. Therewith, a stable hardware basis is set for integrating new technologies in motor vehicles that again present a substantial contribution to traffic safety.

All kind of hot industrial processes need to be contained well to allow the process itself to go on and at the same time to protect neighbouring installations and employees working there. Thermography helps to detect weak points and provides first indications for necessary repairs.

Today gas and steam turbine power plants by the SIEMENS AG are more than ever complex high-tech products. Heavily stressed parts like the turbine blades are tested with the latest measurement techniques for example with infrared thermography.

In order to protect bat populations firstly their ecology has to be understood but it can be very difficult to study the small, nocturnal mammals in the wild. Infrared thermography offers solutions to many of the problems faced by bat ecologists.

Like for all electrical devices, solar cells and modules need to be maintained especially as they are located outdoors. Infrared thermo-graphy offers the possibility to localize and classify problems fast and also with a high accuracy.

ARCHIMEDES Facility-Management GmbH uses its infrared camera predominantly for revisions and securing of quality standards during the construction phase of newly erected buildings and the refurbishment of older buildings. Thereby the detection of construction faults like thermal bridges, poor insulations or air leakages plays a major role.

The company Isabellenhütte Heusler GmbH & Co. KG has identified this potential at an early stage and uses infrared thermography for the quality assurance of their low resistance precision resistors.