Detecting damage in thin plates by processing infrared thermographic data with topological derivatives (Q2425081)

Summary: A thermogram is a color image produced by a thermal camera where each color level represents a different radiation intensity (temperature). In this paper, we study the use of steady and time-harmonic thermograms for structural health monitoring of thin plates. Since conductive heat transfer is short range and the associated signal-to-noise ratio is not very favorable, efficient data processing tools are required to successfully interpret thermograms. We will process thermograms by a mathematical tool called topological derivative, showing its efficiency in very demanding situations where thermograms are highly polluted by noise, and/or when the parameters of the medium fluctuate randomly. An exhaustive gallery of numerical simulations will be presented to assess the performance and limitations of this tool.