Thermal imaging cameras have been extremely useful in a number of industries, ranging from public safety to manufacturing control and system efficiency monitoring. However, when the COVID pandemic arrived, thermal imaging took on a new role that literally meant saving people’s lives from unnecessary exposure to a deadly virus. It was just one of the new ways that thermal imaging continues to improve how people live, work, build, create and support communities.
Health Applications
As noted above, identifying people early who are about to enter a confined public location with a fever or higher than normal body temperature became critical in 2020. Thermal imaging cameras work on the basic principle of sensitivity to infrared radiation and resulting temperature changes. With body temperatures being the primary indicator of potential sickness, scanning for people with telltale body temperature levels became the one consistent and reliable means of ensuring public safety with COVID outbreaks in congregation areas. This was applied repeatedly in airports, schools, public forums, and similar. Large businesses also started using the same technology to protect their operations from being shut down due to large outbreak risks. The sensitivity was tunable to a level of 0.5 degrees Celsius, more than enough to spot someone with a mild fever temperature versus simple exertion.
Law Enforcement Applications
An age-old problem for law enforcement has been nighttime criminal activity. As soon as the officer shows up, culprits run into the darkness, being hard to find visually. However, thermal imaging has literally made hiding at night impossible, even out in the bush away from city lights where to the normal eye everything would be dark. Aerial units are able to literally post people hiding, running, or moving with simply their body heat being a significant difference from their surroundings. The equipment has been it simple for officers to both locate criminal suspects as well as apprehend them quickly.
Safety and Workplace Regulation
With regards to industrial settings, workers are regularly exposed to conditions that can trigger concerns about safety with temperature changes, particularly in hot conditions. Thermal imaging provides a quick and accurate measurement of workplace conditions to both spot problem zones as well as provides accurate monitoring of conditions for shift changes and prevention of injuries. In almost every case, prevention has proven to be significantly cheaper than injury response and recovery after the fact. Thermal imaging has proven to be an ideal tool for spotting heat-related workplace concerns and risks before they manifest into a serious injury and debilitation.
Scientific Research
Like so many other instruments, thermal imaging finds a practical use and place in scientific research as well. However, unlike many other tools, thermal imaging cameras are extremely easy to use, durable in the field, and intuitive to learn. This makes them an ideal tool for rapid deployment and data gathering with regard to temperature-related changes and phenomena in different environments. Further, many thermal imaging cameras are so accurate, they are often used as the configuration standard for other equipment in the field.
Production Quality Compliance
In highly sensitive production processes, temperature changes can cause fatal errors in product results. So, control of the temperature becomes a top priority to manage. Usually, equipment and sensors are in place to maintain a constant temperature during the manufacturing process. However, when things start to go faulty, fluctuations can occur in equipment, assemblies, systems, and surrounding materials. A thermal imaging inspection can spot these problems or variations if heat-related, pointing out the specific area that is creating a deviation from the expected norm.
Performance Testing
Products and systems that have to perform under significant stress are often exposed to higher heat conditions by their own activities, either because of their environments preventing heat release or because the product’s own activity generates heat. Understanding and accurately monitoring these heat conditions provides a key window into mapping the product’s tolerance levels and when temperature changes become too much for acceptable performance levels to continue. This is a particular issue in the technology world with processors that become overworked from 24/7 usage or high constant demand. Thermal imaging cameras provide testers and monitoring personnel with easy and powerful measurement equipment to help find the upper ranges of tolerance that occur prior to catastrophic failure of the product.
Contact Connors Industrials Today
Connors Industrials has been at the forefront of thermal imaging application and support for many of the highest quality options available. Providing support for a combination of hand and field equipment along with the requisite software to take advantage of the collected thermal data even further, Connors Industrial’s specialists are hands-down some of the best thermal imaging experts to work with in the industry. If your company is thinking about implementing a thermal imaging system and protocol or considering upgrading current equipment with far more responsive models and greater capability, we can help.
If your company is looking for an entry point into thermal imaging with guidance, expertise in how the infrared-measuring technology can best be applied in your business situation, and support for after the fact once an acquisition has been made, Connors Industrial should be on your shortlist of vendor options. Given the amount of subject matter expertise our teams can provide you as a customer, you might end up asking the question of why you didn’t consider thermal imaging sooner. That’s okay; a lot of folks ask themselves the same question once they’ve worked with Connors’ staff and product line.