Development of an original active thermography method adapted to ITER plasma facing components control

Among all Non-Destructive Examinations (NDE), active infrared thermography is becoming recognised as a technique available today for improving quality control of many materials and structures involved in heat transfer. The infrared thermography allows to characterise the bond between two materials having different thermal physical properties. In order to increase the defect detection limit of the SATIR test bed, several possibilities have been evaluated to improve the infrared thermography inspection. The implementation in 2003 of a micro-bolometer camera and the improving of the thermo-signal process allowed to increase considerably the detection sensitivity of the SATIR facility. The quality, the spatial stability of infrared image and the detection of edge defect have been also improved. The coupling on the same test bed of SATIR method with a lock-in thermography will be evaluated in this paper. An improvement of the global reliability is expected by data merging produced by the two thermal excitation sources. A new enhanced facility named SATIRPACA has been designed for the full Non Destructive Examination of the High Heat Flux ITER components taking into account these main improvements. These systematic acceptance tests obviously need tools for quality control of critical parts. (authors)