Heating characterization of the thickness-through fatigue crack in metal plate using sonic IR imaging

In sonic IR imaging, a major problem is exploring the heating characteristics of crack vicinity to guide the optimization of the test conditions. In this paper, the crack's heating characteristics of the metallic plate with an artificial fatigue crack has been studied. Experimental results showed that the during ultrasonic excitation the temperature rise of crack vicinity at the plate's excitation side is higher than that at its opposite side, whereas the total heating efficiency of the crack face appears to be stable. Through the profile mapping of the crack face, the frictional heating is mainly concentrated near the excitation side. Based on this phenomenon, we built a mathematical heat transfer model to calculate the temperature distribution of the crack vicinity and investigated the heating features of crack faces. Additionally, the mathematical model gives a quantitative relation between the depth of the heat source and the ratio of the temperature distribution of the crack vicinity at opposite side to that at the front side. This study aims to provide a quantitative evaluation method for locating the frictional heating areas in sonic IR imaging.