Interactive Labs: An Important Part of the ITC Learning Experience

At our Boston-Regional training facility we have a number of interactive, hands-on, labs set-up around the perimeter of the classroom. All are designed to help re-enforce the principles of thermography taught during a course. Students use these with their thermal imagers to improve their camera skills and learn more about infrared science as part of planned exercises that create a unique and valuable training experience for everyone in attendance.

One of my personal favorites is a simple mock-up of an electrical panel rigged with several thermal anomalies on the inside. Warm breakers, hot connections and more can all be safely inspected in this controlled environment. I use this particular lab in Level I training to demonstrate the concept of indirect heating that we teach as a part of basic heat transfer. This is the physics behind why the temperature you measure on the surface of a component is often much cooler than what is happening on the inside, at the point of failure.