What is infrared radiation and how does it relate to problem detection?
Everything that has a temperature emits infrared (IR) radiation . The amount of IR radiation emitted at a certain wavelength, from the surface of an object, is a function of the object’s temperature. This is a very important concept, since it implies that one can calculate the temperature of an object by measuring the infrared radiation emitted from it. Detectors in todays infrared imagers translate incoming IR radiation patterns from an object into visual maps that co-relate image intensity or colour to the amount of IR radiation recieved from that object. The amount of radiation receieved, along with other parameters, is used to calculate the actual surface temperature of the target object. The detectors are extremely sensitive to minute temperature differences and, under the control of a trained thermographer, temperature calculations are accurate and reliable.
