Assesment of Thermography as a Non-destructive Testing Technique to Structural Health Monitoring of an Electric Furnace

Abstract

Thermography is a well-known technique in industrial applications to check for refractory lining deterioration. In this work, experimental temperatures are obtained for different panels around an electric furnace for ferronickel smelting, and heat from each panel or zone is calculated for both normal operating conditions and during a shutdown and starting. Results showed that thermography can spot differences in surface temperature and heat transferred between panels, indicating that refractory is eroded in the ones with bigger values. Thermography can also follow quite well the transient behavior of the furnace.