Patent ID: 8749629

Claim:
A method for calibrating a thermal radiance map of a rotating turbine component in a high temperature combustion environment of a turbine, the method comprising: disposing at least two spaced-apart spots of respective materials on a surface of the turbine component, the respective materials having different melting points; operating the turbine and thus causing rotation of the turbine component; arranging an imager so that said at least two spots are within a field of view of the imager to acquire imaging data of the rotating turbine component including said at least two spots; increasing a temperature of the combustion environment of the turbine; processing the imaging data to generate a sequence of two-dimensional images of the rotating turbine component including said at least two spots as the temperature of the combustion environment turbine is increased; monitoring the sequence of images including said at least two spots to determine occurrences of respective physical changes of said at least two spots as the temperature of the combustion environment turbine is increased, wherein the respective physical changes are due to melting of the respective materials, wherein the melting points of the respective materials are known; assigning respective temperature values to the surface of the rotating turbine component when the occurrences of the respective physical changes of said at least two spots are determined, wherein the respective temperature values assigned to the surface of the rotating turbine component correspond to the known melting points of the respective materials; generating a thermal radiance map of the rotating turbine component based on infrared (IR) emissions from the rotating turbine component; and calibrating the radiance map of the rotating turbine component based on the assigned temperature values to generate a calibrated thermal map of the rotating turbine component that indicates absolute temperature over the surface of the rotating turbine component.