Current Status Of Professionalism In Commercial Infrared Sensing

Current status of professionalism in commercial infrared sensingG. E. CourvilleEnergy DivisionOak Ridge National LaboratoryP. 0. Box X, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831AbstractRecent events of interest to Thermosense VIII attendees will be discussed. This includestraining programs, conferences, standards, significant articles, and professional groupactivities.IntroductionCommercial infrared sensing, as used in this paper and as determined by technical topicsdiscussed at these Thermosense conferences, refers to applications of infrared technology inthe private, entrepreneurial sector of the economy. This excludes military, medical, andbasic research use of the technology. These latter areas are in fact well served byseparate, well organized professional infrastructures.Professionalism has been defined as the art of working at a job for a living. In otherwords, if you make your living from thermography, you are a professional thermographer.When put in this context, the attributes of professionalism are easier to identify. Thesecertainly must include sales skills, business sense, ethics, and technical competence.While these are all interrelated to some extent, this presentation will focus only on thelatter: technical competence.Technical societiesFor the professional thermographer whose interest in the technology only peripherallyextends beyond the correct use of the equipment in problem solving, maintenance of technicalcompetence involves communications, training, and standardization, and the primary instru-ment for achieving this is the technical society. Thermographers need to be aware of thesocieties that address matters of interest to their profession, and it is in their bestinterests to participate in these societies. Table 1 provides a listing of these societiesand gives some indication of the extent of their involvement. Unfortunately, no singlesociety provides full service for the profession. NAIRTA, which is the topic of anotherpaper in these proceedings, will come close if it is able to live up to the charter that itsBoard of Directors has laid out. SPIE, the principal sponsor of these ThermosenseConferences, has organized an official Working Group with wide membership in the industry.This Working Group is chartered within SPIE to address the communications and specialtraining needs of thermographers. This includes responsibility for the content and scheduleof Thermosense conferences as well as organization of topical workshops and subgroups todeal with special issues. Information on the Working Group is available from SPIEHeadquarters. While technical papers on thermography are frequently found in the pro-ceedings of the societies listed in Table 1, other than Thermosense, there is no societyconference devoted to commercial thermography. The one other conference series that doesfocus on commercial applications is the IRIE conferences sponsored by AGEMA, a supplier ofinfrared equipment.TrainingTraining is not characteristically a dominant function of professional societies. In theinfrared industry there are three primary sources of training: the equipment suppliers,small entrepreneurial firms and company programs (often staffed by the first two sources).Programs familiar to the author that are offered periodically are listed in Table 2 andreferences are given in the footnotes.Infrared training programs have some unique features that should be understood by thepotential user. Thermography is a diagnostics tool that may be used when information onsurface temperature distributions can be useful in solving problems. The typical user ofthis technology is not, nor need not be, very familiar with the scientific details ofinfrared radiometry. The available courses shown in Table 2 reflect this. They emphasizethe use and care of the equipment and its application in solving specific problems.