Three-dimensional thermal imaging for power equipment monitoring

It is well known that most faults in a power system appear as localised hot spots in their tarry stage of development and gradually grow into accident s that are not remediable? such as total insulation breakdown or even explo sion. Through the detection of hot spots and abnormal rise in working tempe rature of conductors or insulators, infrared thermography has been one of t he most useful tools in identifying potential failures, so that preventive measures can be taken to avoid the occurrence of any hazard. However, this method has not attracted worldwide attention and popularity because it is e xtremely difficult to visually analyse thermal images of power equipment an d, very often, only skilful maintenance engineers are able to make correct judgments based on these images due to a lack of three-dimensional sense. T he employment of techniques in virtual reality to produce three-dimensional thermal images is described, so that users are able to manipulate the thre e-dimensional object on the screen under both geometrical mode and thermal mode. Hot spots can easily be identified as a means of condition-based main tenance. This system can provide vital indications of the equipment's condi tion, providing warnings of potential problems. This technique is totally n oninvasive and it can keep the plant in service throughout the whole period of assessment. Furthermore, this system should also be useful for training maintenance engineers. The whole system (including the hardware set-up and the associated mathematics) is described.