Defect detection in CFRP by infrared thermography with CO2 Laser excitation compared to conventional lock-in infrared thermography

•Implementation of an infrared thermography method with a CO2 Laser excitation system.•Method allowing to detect the defects in the application methods with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP).•Non-destructive testing (NDT) by infrared thermography method with a controllable excitation system. This paper presents a NDT by a CO2 Laser infrared thermography applied to defect detection in CFRP. The CO2 Laser is an infrared laser with the wavelength of 10.6μm. This excitation has a controllable heating beam by a geometric relation D=0.01575·d, which allows to heat the samples at a specific position (placed at the distance “d”) and area (of a diameter “D”). The PPT interpretation principle was used to reduce the non-uniformity’s effect of the excitation causing inhomogeneous heat. The test with this excitation is much faster than the tests with conventional lock-in thermography method.