For Safe Electromobility – Thermographic Testing of Lithium-Ion Batteries

The energy efficiency of electronic components is becoming increasingly important in numerous fields of application. And that is not all: in our electronic and high-tech age, the demand is for even faster active components, higher power densities of miniaturised systems as well as absolute reliability. Along with this, there is the request for environmentally conscious resource procurement and the requirement that the increase in performance of modules should run parallel to lower energy consumption.

Today, thermographic damage and function analysis of electronic components is an established test method in electrical engineering. This method is also used for research purposes at the Institute for Electrical Systems and Energy Logistics at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg. In this context, Prof. Dr. Ralph Schacht is intensively involved with the material and system characterisation as well as the non-destructive failure analysis of printed circuit boards, electronic components, microelectronics as well as composite systems of packaging and interconnection technology.

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.

When electric vehicles went into production, the joining process was replaced by resistance spot welding. The INDU-SCAN test bench already in operation was converted using existing technology and modernised with intelligent algorithms and robot technology to enable quality control of the joined sheet metal parts.

Contactless measurement of temperature distributions and profiles with industrial thermographic cameras permits efficient monitoring and control of temperature-dependent processes and procedures within a system-integrated quality assurance programme in industry.

Check the microstructures of sheet metal parts during the stamping process and establish a uniform high strength and quality of all produced stampings safely and with a contact-free method.

Infrared cameras allow the non-destructive and process-synchronous monitoring of coating processes to ensure that the coatings are free of defects as soon as they are applied.

Using pulse thermography, WELD-CHECK enables you a quantitative assessment of the inspected welds.

Check for long-life fatigue strength of mechanical components in load tests, using high-end infrared cameras.

Detect inhomogeneous temperature distribution and local power loss during the production using the Lock-in Thermography.

Monitor assembly halls and storage facilities fully automatically 24/7 and detect critical heat sources reliably.

Faster Measurement with a Constant Field of View

Due to binning technology, infrared cameras have an additional high-speed mode in which the frame rate increases to more than three times and the thermal resolution can be doubled.

Behind the function is a fast-rotating MicroScan wheel, which is integrated into the camera. It ensures that four different individual exposures are taken per wheel revolution, which are offset laterally by half a pixel each. In this way, thermography achieves a new quality due to thermal images providing a quadrupled spatial resolution.

For detection of small temperature changes InfraTec's infrared cameras offer thermal resolutions up to < 15 mK in real-time operation. By using the Lock-in Thermography method it is possible to further increase this resolution significantly. For this purpose test objects are periodically excited and non-destructively examined for defects and irregularities.

Guaranteed Flexibility and Measurement Accuracy

Due to this innovative feature, the cameras' measurement accuracy remains unchanged even when integration times or measurement ranges are altered. This will save users both time and money.

The Auto Calibration option expands the HighSense function to include automatic, dynamic adaptation of the integration time. This ensures the utmost temperature measuring accuracy and an optimised signal-to-noise ratio throughout the process. The wellfill of a detector is usually optimal in certain areas of the dynamic range. If the measured object signal is outside theses or user-specified limits, the integration time is readjusted.

Display of Large Temperature Ranges Simultaneously

The HDR function enables thermograms with different integration times and filters to be created in quick succession and combined into a single image with large temperature differences.

Ultra-Fast Data Transfer

High-resolution detectors and high frame rates generate large amounts of data. With the 10 Gigabit Ethernet interface, this data can be transferred quickly, reliably and without loss.

Wireless Measurement – Independent and Convenient

The functions of the stationary camera systems can be controlled via the integrated web interface using a smartphone or software, as well as via an additional tablet attached to the housing.

Sharp Imaging of all Objects in the Frame

The innovative Multifocus function ensures that the quality of the images is completely independent of the depth of field of the lenses used or the distance of the test objects from the camera.

The multispectral feature makes it possible to record sequences with constantly changing spectral filters. Images are recorded synchronously with a rapidly rotating filter wheel equipped with the filters. It may be possible to switch between up to seven filters, depending on the version. Due to this the multispectral measurement can be optimised to suit the measuring task if the preset ranges are unsuitable. The integration times can be adapted within the limits calibrated for this filter.