The use of thermography as a means of structural health monitoring has significantly increased in recent years.
This is due to the advancement of IR cameras and the considerable reduction in the cost.
By using an IR camera for the NDT of building structures, the amount of time needed to inspect the structure can be significantly reduced.
This is because , the thermograms, which are screening of potential defects in the subsurface, can pinpoint the defected areas in the structures and thus reduce the amount of time to inspect compared to sounding test, since there is no need to inspect spot by spot.
However, traditional methods, sounding and visual inspections, whilst still mainstream for
infrastructure inspection are being challenged by the advent of IR and related technology as well as enhanced data processing systems.
Thermography offers noncontact, wide area detection of subsurface defects, and can be used as an alternative or complement to the conventional inspection technologies.
