TRAINING DAY 2 PART 2

The first biggest challenge of the day was to learn the differences between heat and temperature. You are thinking... well duh? Those are pretty easy to understand...Well, not so much in the infrared world. In a future blog post, I will break down this concept further and talk a little about emissivity, but for now we will just get your brain warmed up.

Let me break down the differences between heat and temperature as best as I can...Once you can understand the differences, you will have figured out a large portion of what infrared thermography is all about.

Heat is a form of energy that is transferred by a difference in temperature. It is not energy contained within a system (or bodies) like we like to think of it as.

Temperature is a measurement of the average kinetic energy (motion energy) of the molecule in an object or system. It is NOT energy...it is the result of adding or removing heat energy. Below, I post a diagram that I found helpful when I was trying to understand these concepts. 

Is this confusing you yet? Well the more you think about it and experience it firsthand, the easier it is to understand. I am still learning and letting it soak in, so don’t worry if it doesn't make complete sense yet. Knowing the way heat energy works can help you look at your infrared images with a different perspective These concepts are important to understand when becoming a Thermographer. I recommend taking more time to research what these things mean to thermography if this doesn't make sense. 

An example of how heat transfer works can be illustrated by the image on the left. This is an image of a wet roof that is leaking into a ceiling. We are able to see this because the transfer of heat energy is what causes the cooling effect of evaporation. The infrared camera is able to spot wet areas because of the change in temperature.  Pretty cool right?! Not so much for the people that have to take care of this roof though... 

Someday we will talk about how roof inspections work and when the best time to do them is. Timing is a huge part of thermography and knowing when to do your scan can make a huge difference. 

I finished the night off with some delicious fajitas from the Mexican restaurant nearby. It was a great way to end the chaotic, yet productive learning day. It was another training day in the books and I was one day closer to becoming certified as a level 1 thermographer. I hope I haven’t lost you yet and would still like to hear more about my journey. Stay tuned for next week's blog post which is about my third day of training!

Until then,

Christina