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Thermography and your electrical system

For most businesses, energy is a crucial input. Where would you be without heating and air conditioning or computer systems, let alone the machinery you use if you’re in manufacturing? What if an incident knocked out your power? When it comes to building and equipment maintenance, it can be easy to forget to include a thorough inspection of your electrical system to make sure it’s still in good shape.

One way to reduce your risk of electrical downtime is thermographic infrared scanning, also known as thermography.

Potential causes of electrical system failure:

Loose connections within electrical panels on wiring contacts and component connections
Deteriorated electrical and wiring connections
Inadequate breakers

If left uncorrected, these conditions could result in the following:

Fires
Damage to surrounding property and equipment
Power outages
Downtime of operations resulting in the loss of production, higher operating costs, dissatisfied customers and loss of profit.

In these incidents, thermographic testing is a beneficial preventative maintenance procedure to minimize such loss exposures.

Preventative measures:

Thermography or Thermographic infrared scanning — when performed by an accredited technician – is an effective technique for detecting hot spots in electrical systems prior to equipment breakdown, allowing the severity of the condition to be graded for immediate or scheduled corrective measure.
Thermographic cameras produce an image of invisible infrared/ heat radiation from a defective electric component(s) or connection(s) invisible to the human eye.
The higher an object’s temperature, the greater the emission of infrared radiation detected. If higher than normal infrared radiation is detected, a schedule shut-down of equipment can be made to correct the problem prior to a failure occurring.

Thermography should always be performed by an accredited technician.