Thermographic Inspection is the most powerful, remote, non-contact, on-line inspection technique available today for establishing the integrity and safety of all electrical installations. In fact, in many developed countries around the world this technique is now a mandatory procedure.
The concept and theory of this technique is based 100% upon Joule’s Law:
P = R x I²
P = Effect (Watts)
R = Resistance (OHMS)
I = Current (Ampheres)
In general terms the vast majority of electrical installations are inspected once a year, and this is usually carried out by visually checking for any obvious defects, and randomly tightening specific connection points, such as a cable to busbar connection. In some cases electrical inspections are not even carried out until there is a failure, which is usually announced by a power outage or even worse by an overheated component catching fire.
By utilizing Thermography on a regular basis, usually twice a year depending upon the installation, we provide a complete thermal picture of the total installation. Thus identifying the location of existing defects but also the developing problems, enabling their early and economic rectification. This will avoid unannounced power failures or the consequences of an electrical fire. As a result of the advanced nature of the equipment we use to analyse the image, we do not need to have a switchboard operating at full load. As long as it has more than 20% of full load an accurate profile for the connected equipment can be obtained.
We can thermally resolve temperature variations as small as 0.08°C and spatially to 1 milli-radian.
Even if your electrical contractor is already conducting thermographic inspections, we are confident that a Vipac thermographic inspection provides independent analysis of the system and gives the building manager better control over the electrical maintenance operations. Especially considering that we can quite easily conduct thermographic inspections during our other survey visits.