ANALYSIS OF ELECTRICAL AND THERMAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LOAD-RELAY CIRCUIT USING THERMAL IMAGING

Condition monitoring and maintenance of electrical equipments are very important matters as it has an enormous influence on daily life. Temperature inflation is a significant factor which concerns the performance of electrical equipment. In this paper, a method is proposed to compute a temperature of any point from acquired thermal image. Thermal camera is used for image acquisition which is a non-contact device. For the experiment, temperature profile of high-wattage resistors was analyzed. Current, voltage, power dissipation was measured theoretically and practically. The relation between electrical characteristics and thermal profile is analyzed by using thermal image processing. The results achieved from this study explains how electrical characteristics affect the temperature distribution. The results presented in this work can be helpful to estimate the safety limits so that electrical equipment can be protected from overheating and helps to diagnose the faults at early stages. This method can be valuable in preventive maintenance and it is safer than other contact methods.