Infrared Thermography - Video Imaging

Infrared Thermography (IRT) is a valuable and cost effective inspection method for evaluating bridge decks and pavements to detect delamination in concrete. Penetradar has improved upon current methods of infrared thermographic inspection and video imaging to accommodate the advances in camera technologies. These improvements enhance data collection, analysis and provide greater accuracy in results.

The video recordings are captured at an ultra-high (4K) resolution of up to 3840x2160 at 60 fps, ensuring that all details of the bridge deck and pavement surfaces are recorded with maximum quality at highway speeds.

Infrared Thermography (IRT) records radiometric data, meaning not only does the camera record a thermal image of the surface, it records exact temperature values for each pixel in every image frame. That’s almost 8 million temperature values per second! These embedded temperature values are utilized by our specialized post-processing software for calibration and optimization of the infrared data; identifying the correct temperature range that corresponds to delamination locations. This results in better reliability of detections and an increased accuracy in the final output which is not possible with older style infrared equipment due to the lack of radiometric recording capability.

View of full lane radiometric data capture using the infrared camera showing potential delaminations. The temperature scale to the right can be modified to optimize the infrared display of the bridge deck/pavement.

Penetradar utilizes the most advanced IR and Video Camera technology with high frame rates (up to 60Hz), permitting high speed travel, ultra-high resolution; 640x480 (IR) & 4K (Visual), which provides detailed surface features and a wide angle field-of-view lens to capture multiple pavement lanes during inspection.

Penetradar's ThermaMap bridge deck and pavement inspection system showing the infrared camera mounting structure

Penetradar’s cutting-edge analysis software produces accurately scaled, plan-view (top-down perspective) thermal maps showing delaminations based upon distance. Our software preserves of the size, dimensions and location of thermal anomalies such as delamination, debonding or other flaws. This process removes much of the subjectivity and errors that are inherent with older, manual analysis methods. The same software is used to produce similar maps from the video imaging data.

Output Visual Map showing patching including a zoomed in view to show exact dimensions and shapes of surface detail

Output Infrared Map showing areas of probable delamination

To improve the visualization of the location of delamination we provide an interactive bridge deck map showing both infrared and visual layers superimposed.

Interactive PDF showing all the detections including the visual layer of the bridge deck turned on via the toggle buttons at the bottom of the page. This can be done for all the detection layers.