Automatic Diagnosis of Iron and steel Equipment using Infrared Thermography

Abstract

Among the applicability of infrared thermography we find the iron and steel industry, where the inspection and the maintenance of machines play a significant role in this field to avoid breakdowns and damages. The inspection using Infrared thermography technology can be conducted efficiently by keeping a distance from the inspected equipment. There is no need to halt equipment operation while an inspection is going on. Since the collection of information for inspection is contactless, hazardous operations can be avoided. The main information gained from this technology is in the form of thermal image. Any abnormal condition of an inspected object will be reflected as an abnormal spot. The objective of this work is to visualize the anomalies existing in iron and steel industry during an inspection of some machines using A40 Flir camera. Then, we threshold these images in order to show the zone of interest and we make comparison between a few thresholding methods of thermal images obtained to choose the best one.