infrared imaging to combustion systems

Over two centuries passed since the first stone posed by Herschel in the foundation of the infrared radiation world. For many years, infrared thermography IRT had been a subject of dispute and investigation with great enthusiasm and wide scepticism. Today, the usefulness of infrared thermography has been amply demonstrated leading to a proliferation of infrared devices of different sizes and different performances to fulfil the requirements of the multitude of users in the vast variety of applications. The basic role of an infrared imaging system is to supply information about the temperature map over a body surface, but it is the successive processing of such a map that transforms the infrared system into a multifarious tool. It becomes an hypertermia detector for a doctor, a hot spot indicator for an electrician, a thermal junctions detector for an architect or a civil engineer, a nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technique for a product's quality inspector, and a variety of other instruments depending on who uses it and for what it is used. Indeed, IRT can be advantageously used in many and many fields. Of course, complete exploitation of an infrared device requires the understanding of basic theory and of application standards. This ebook attempts to comply with both requirements. In fact, it includes information about: basic theory, infrared detectors, signal digitalization, the working concepts of an infrared device as well as a panorama of today's infrared cameras, and examples of applications in many fields such as medicine, foodstuff conservation, fluid-dynamics, architecture, non destructive testing and evaluation of materials and structures. The eBook is organised in two main parts: Part I and Part II and further into several chapters. The Part I includes two chapters. The first one, by the Editor, deals with basic theory, which is described following the historical steps by eminent scientists, from Herschel, to Nobili, Melloni, Stefan, Boltzmann to Planck and others. The radiation mechanisms with the most important parameters, which play a key role in the acquisition and interpretation of thermal images, are recalled and discussed. A section is devoted to detectors used for infrared technology. The main steps in detectors' development following the technological progress are also drawn. The second chapter is by Roberto Rinaldi of the Infrared Training Centre (ITC) by Flir Systems in Milan (Italy). This chapter is concerned with an overview of infrared imaging devices from the first prototype developed in 1958 to the multitude of models, which are available today. The historical evolution of the infrared technology is traced within the key features of each model. In particular, some basic characteristics and performance are described, which may help the reader in the choice of the most appropriate device for the specific application. Part II is subdivided into four sections and many chapters, which are numbered following part I. The first section includes applications to medicine (Chapter 3) and veterinary (Chapter 4). The study of the temperature of the human body has been associated with health as far back as the 1st century BC, when Hypocrites (the father of medicine) used the sense of touch for skin surface temperature anomalies to determine the health of his patients. Even today, monitoring the body temperature variation aides in both diagnosis and treatment planning. Chapter three was prepared by Boris G. Vainer of the Institute of Semiconductor Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This chapter reports on the IRT's state of the art in medicine with methodological approaches and a variety of applications such as in the diagnosis of breast cancer, in ophthalmologic surgery, in cardiovascular surgery, in the vis