Thermography

Thermography is a valuable tool for conditional monitoring electrical installations leading to fewer failures and reduced fire risks and is highly suitable for finding loose connections, bad joints and overloading on fuses, cables, bus-bars, switches, distribution systems and sub-stations.

All electrical faults eventually generate some degree of heat. The ability of the infra-red detector to pick up this heat makes it ideally suited for performing electrical inspections of distribution and switch gear without the necessity to switch off.

All medium and low voltage switch gear can be examined without interruption to power and production and a report can be generated rapidly indicating existing and potential faults within the system.

This ensures that during subsequent planned maintenance shutdowns, time is minimized in that only the faults found need to be dealt with. No visual or manual checking of the system is necessary.

The Purpose of the survey is to determine any temperature irregularities in the electrical installation by examining the thermal image of connections, cables and components.

The thermographic equipment examines the thermal image of any object under inspection and enables the temperature to be recorded by an infra-red sensor through the camera lens. This is done from a safe distance and no contact is made with any electrical installation.

The thermal image is recorded in iron colour scale, which gives 256 colour shades between minimum and maximum temperatures. The thermographs have not been enhanced or touched up by computer techniques, but are the exact transfer from camera to document.

Photographs accompany the thermographs to aid identification of the fault. An arrow will normally indicate the point of concern.

It should be noted that some electrical circuits may not be on load at the time of the survey and as such would not be at a normal operating temperature.