This paper presents the current state of our efforts to increase efficiency of petrochemical plant with using spectral-band
dynamic IR radiation thermometry. Depending on the type of investigations i.e. studying tubes' temperature, what is the
most typical and important case or studying energetic and dynamic features of the flames and flue gases, different
narrow-band optical filters and research procedures have to be applied. To perform both type of these measurements we
modernized commercial PtSi FPA camera and software to process various sequences of thermal images. Two of results
are highlighted: possibilities to increase tube' temperature measurements confident and reliability due to minimization of
errors going from mostly fluctuating reflections of surrounding heat sources and self-emissions of heating medium
between tube and camera, as well as a new diagnostic potential of the images of chosen gases features, for comparative
investigations in particular. Case histories, some challenges and limitations during elaborated method application have
also been addressed.
A few years ago we have developed a patent pending method that allows to increase the reliability of the heater's tube
temperature measurements through flames. The applications of this method showed additional potential for investigation
of heating medium, i.e. mixture of various gases and aerosols inside flames and flue gases. This paper presents the
recently developed, new version of the measuring system based on PtSi IRFPA commercial thermographic type camera.
Two additional optical (8 filter wheel) and digital interfaces have been applied. The main special feature of elaborated
techniques is the dynamic spectrally matched IR thermography, which bases on forming single images that consist of
pixels of chosen statistical value, minimum and maximum, noted during adequately long sequence of thermograms with
total independence to the moment of their capture. Sets of these data can be used either directly or as inputs to other
artificial images. In this way, additive or suppressed interferences of fluctuating character could be minimized or
exhibited, depending on the type of investigations i.e. studying tubes' temperature or energetic features of the flames and
flue gases. Some of the results emerged as very promising - in the future they may help in creating a new field of
thermal cameras application for furnaces control or steering to further enhance safety and efficiency of furnaces running.
A major concern in the petrochemical industry is both safety and efficiency of process heaters operation. As the tubes temperature and the symmetry of heating belong to the critical components, infrared imaging and measuring methods have been used worldwide for many years. Monitoring these high temperature objects has frequently been relying on highly subjective analyses, particularly due to fluctuations of flame and heating medium and/or sometimes inaccurate or not well-fit thermocouple data. Recent developments in infrared camera technology and data processing possibilities have brought significant progress for high resolution spatial and temporal analysis of infrared radiation distributions. This paper presents an innovative method which deals with the flickering and spectrally selective features of the heating mediums, analysed basing on capturing and elaboration of long sequence of images instead of the snapshot method. Thereupon, digital image processing algorithms enable automatic search of a few chosen statistic values for every pixel of the every frame, with the aim to form substitute images, which consist only from pixels of min., max, or mean values and their standard deviation distributions. By applying this new methodology, it is possible to separate extremes of fluctuating signals and, in result, to obtain deeper and more reliable knowledge about temperature distributions or about heating phenomena inside process furnaces. These data can be utilised to significantly increase heater throughput while helping to ensure safe operation of the heater. Many other applications could take advantage of presented idea, algorithm and tools.
The paper presents method of acquiring a new form of statistical information about the changes at scenery, overseen by thermal imaging camera in static configuration. This type of imagers reach uniquely high efficiency during nighttime surveillance and targeting. The technical issue we have solved, resulted from the problem: how to verify the hypothesis that small, nocturnal rodents, like bank voles, use common paths inside their range and that they form a common, rather stable system? Such research has been especially difficult because the mentioned mammals are secretive, move with various speed and due to low contrast to their natural surroundings - as leaves or grass - nearly impossible for other kind of observations from a few meters distance. The main advantage of the elaborated method showed to be both adequately filtered long thermal movies for manual analyses, as well as auto-creation of the synthetic images which present maps of invisible paths and activity of their usage. Additional file with logs describing objects and their dislocations as the ".txt" files allows various, more detailed studies of animal behavior. The obtained results proved that this original method delivers a new, non-invasive, powerful and dynamic concept of solving various ecological problems. Creation of networks consisted of uncooled thermal imagers - of significantly increased availability - with data transmissions to digital centers allows to investigate of moving - particularly heat generated - objects in complete darkness, much wider and much more efficiently than up today. Thus, although our system was elaborated for ecological studies, a similar one can be considered as a tool for chosen tasks in the optical security areas.
This paper describes the methodology that aims at detecting tube temperatures and diagnosis of heating medium in presence of visible and invisible flames, by means of sequences of the narrowband images stored during steady position of the applied camera. The main special feature of elaborated techniques is the dynamic spectrally matched IR thermography, which bases on forming single images that consist of pixels of chosen statistical value, minimum and maximum, noted during adequately long sequence of thermograms with total independence to the moment of their capture. Arrays of these data can be used directly, or as inputs to other artificial images. In this way, additive or suppressed interferences of fluctuating character could be minimalized or exhibited, depending on the type of investigations. By the use of properly chosen optical filters and algorithm, the elaborated method offers a new possibilities to test temperature problems other than more reliable tube temperature measurements, as for example study of heating medium features, symmetry, etc.
This paper presents a study the possibilities of evaluation of thermal parameters for single and multilayer structures using dynamic thermography. Potentialities of both lock-in and pulse thermography is discussed. Simulation for periodic excitation and multilayer composite material is presented. Practically, the described methods are applied for microelectronic multilayer components as well as for nonwovens manufactured from hemp fibers, chemical fibers and with an addition of electrically conducting fibers.
This paper presents possible hardware solutions for fast, real-time thermal image acquisition, based on PCI with high-speed memory buffering using SDRAMs. A thermographic head equipped with 16 detectors were built to monitor thermal processes with the rate of 1MSample/s. A few application for textiles, glass industry and 3D scene reconstruction show the potentialities of the system.
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