摘要 |
An apparatus and an active thermographic method for detecting subsurface defects in a specimen (104), particularly kissing unbond defects, includes heating the specimen, applying a force to the surface (102) of the specimen to shift and separate the walls of a defect, and obtaining thermographic images of the specimen over time to monitor the heat flow through the specimen and detect thermal discontinuities. Because kissing unbond defects normally have good physical contacts, and therefore, good thermal conductivity, between its walls, these defects can go undetected in conventional active thermographic methods. By distorting the surface of the specimen, the kissing unbond defect is enlarged enough to generate sufficient thermal contrast for the defect to appear in the thermographic images.
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