OCT project for non-destructive material testing

Industrial monuments provide important historical testimony to industrial change, and the aim is to preserve them in as original a condition as possible. For example, transparent coatings can be applied to prevent further corrosion, for example. However, these coatings need to be regularly inspected to ensure a permanent level of protection. Experts from the THGA are collaborating with material scientists from the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum on a joint project to develop a new analysis procedure, which can improve the quality of the inspection of such coatings.

With the new method, which is based on optical coherence tomography (OCT), impending damage to the coatings can be detected even when it is not yet visible on the surface. Corrosion damage underneath the protective coating can also be detected at an early stage. Thanks to these advantageous properties, OTC has the potential to become a new standard procedure for the non-destructive quality inspection of transparent preservation coatings - and thus protect industrial monuments even better. Incidentally, this includes not only large facilities such as collieries or coking plants, but also old machines that are worth preserving.