Abstract
In this paper, an overview of the recent applications of pulsed infrared thermography is presented. Pulsed infrared thermography, which provides stratigraphic information by analyzing the heat diffusion process within the sample after a thermal perturbation, is applied to the investigation of different kinds of cultural heritage artefacts. In particular, it is used to analyze repairs, decorative elements, and casting faults on bronzes, to detect texts hidden or damaged in ancient books/documents, and to characterize paint decorations. Moreover, the integration of pulsed infrared thermography and three-dimensional shape recording methods is proposed in order to provide a three-dimensional representation of the thermographic results. Finally, it is shown how the obtained thermographic results may be crucial from the historical and artistic points of view for understanding the modus operandi of a specific artist and/or of a workshop and for reconstructing the manufacturing process of the analyzed artefacts.
Highlights
In recent years, the number of non-destructive investigations applied to the study of cultural heritage artefacts has increased
This basically consists in quickly heating the sample by the absorption of a light pulse, consisting of radiation in the ultra-violet (UV), visible (VIS), and near-infrared (NIR) range, and analyzing the subsequent temperature decay phase with an infrared camera which records the radiation emitted in the middle-wave infrared region (MWIR) or in the long-wave infrared region (LWIR) [16]
Some recent applications of infrared thermography (IRT) have been reported showing how this technique can be successfully applied to the study of a large variety of cultural heritage structures and materials
Summary
The number of non-destructive investigations applied to the study of cultural heritage artefacts has increased. Two of the main purposes consist of the characterization of the artefact constituent materials and the study of the manufacturing process. They are often achieved by the application of specific diagnostics, namely non-destructive testing (NDT), which enables the investigation of artwork materials without causing damage [1,2]. Among them, infrared thermography (IRT) has been successfully applied to the investigation of cultural heritage structures and materials [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. Depending on the external excitation mode, different configurations of active IRT can be identified, the main ones being pulsed and lock-in IRT
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