Shaping the Future of Thermography: Standardization as a Bridge between Innovation and Application

Standardization is essential for successfully transferring new NDT technologies into industrial applications. Standardization creates the necessary technical, legal, and economic basis by making NDT procedures objective, reproducible, and independent of the user. It helps to meet safety and quality requirements, which is particularly crucial in regulated industries such as aviation or medical technology. In addition, recognized standards reduce investment risks for companies and accelerate approval processes. Standards thus act as a bridge between research and industrial practice by translating innovative technologies into applicable and economically viable processes. Standardization work is by no means the task of a small secret circle, but rather depends on the active participation of industry, research, and other interested parties. An outstanding example of this is the successful work of the responsible European committee CEN/TC 138/WG 11 “Thermographic testing”, which has proven to be an extremely effective powerhouse for establishing thermographic testing in the international standardization arena and into whose work we provide insights. This contribution highlights the status of thermography standardization at the European and international levels and provides an outlook on future developments.