Thermal cycling is an issue in thermographic surveys. Does your thermographic program account for it?
When equipment turns on and off, it heats and cools — this is thermal cycling. When materials heat up, they expand. When they cool, they contract. The more severe and frequent these swings are, the greater the stress on physical components.
Obviously, you scan intermittently operated equipment while it's running. However, it may be impractical to run this equipment long enough to bring the thermal-cycling stressed connections to the needed heat threshold.
For intermittent applications, use the thermographic survey to look for advanced, rather than emerging, problems. Give the system an “OK” only after checking the connections with a low-ohms meter (not a DMM).
