Apparatus and method for temperature mapping a turbine component in a high temperature combustion environment

A system for calibrating a thermal radiance map of a rotating turbine component in a high temperature combustion environment of a turbine, the system comprising:

• at least two spaced-apart spots of respective materials disposed on a surface of the turbine component, wherein in at least a spectral region of the electromagnetic spectrum respective emissivity values of said at least two spots of respective materials have distinct values relative to an emissivity value of the surface of the turbine component;
• a controller to operate the turbine and thus cause rotation of the turbine component;
• an infrared (IR) imager arranged so that said at least two spots are within a field of view of the imager to acquire in the spectral region imaging data of the rotating turbine component including said at least two spots;
• a processor configured to process the imaging data including said at least two spots to generate a sequence of two-dimensional images of the rotating component including said at least two spots as a temperature of the combustion environment turbine is increased;
• a monitor coupled to the processor to monitor 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 of said at least two spots are due to melting of the respective materials, wherein the respective materials having different melting points, wherein the melting points of the respective materials are known;
• and
• a calibration module configured to assign 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 by the calibration module to the surface of the rotating turbine component correspond to the known melting points of the respective materials,
• wherein the processor is configured to generate a thermal radiance map of the rotating turbine component based on infrared (IR) emissions from the rotating turbine component, and to calibrate 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.