Infrared Thermography of Complex 3D Printed Components

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the accuracy of Infrared Lock-In Thermography (LIT) for estimating the thickness of complex 3D printed components, demonstrating its effectiveness up to 1.8mm and revealing new insights into the relationship between gradient and phase signals.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of LIT for complex 3D printed parts and uncovers a new relationship between gradient and phase signals contrary to existing literature.

Findings

LIT accurately estimates thickness up to 1.8mm.

A new relationship between gradient and phase signals was identified.

LIT can be applied to complex 3D printed components.

Abstract

The possibility of using Infrared Lock-In Thermography (LIT) to estimate the thickness of a sample was assessed and shown to be accurate up to 1.8mm. LIT is a technique involving heating samples with halogen lamps with varying intensity over time. The intensity is defined by sinusoidal functions. LIT was conducted on samples of varying thickness, gradient, and shape. The Lock-In phase signals were calculated, and a database was then created with the data obtained and was used to estimate the thickness based on the original phase signal. A relationship between gradient and phase signal was also shown based on our data, contrary to current findings in existing literature.