Borescopes
Description
Borescopes are small optical devices used in the internal visual inspection of materials for manufacturing defects and other damages, such as inspection of physical damage in aircraft engine. The borescopes consist of a rigid or flexible visual tube with an eyepiece at one side and an objective lens (similar to a camera lens) on the other side. This flexible tube can be inserted into bores for a visual check. Objective lens and eyepiece are interconnected by a relay optical system. The optical fibers surrounding the relay optical system are used to provide illumination to the remote object. The objective lens forms the internal image from the illuminated remote object and transmits it to the eyepiece, where the internal image is magnified and presented to the viewers. The borescope equipment uses some common type of lens like achromatic doublet, rod lens, fused quartz fibers, and gradient index.
Types
Basic types of industrial borescopes are listed below:
Flexible borescopes
Rigid borescopes
Semi-rigid borescopes
Other types of borescopes are listed below:
Fiber optic borescopes
Video borescopes
Portable borescopes
Micro borescopes
Features
The main features of borescopes include:
Specifications
The specifications criteria for borescopes include:
Applications
The applications of borescopes are listed below:
Mainly used in the aircraft maintenance and also in the visual inspection of aircraft engines, aero derivative gas turbines, steam turbines, diesel engines and automotive engines
Building inspectors use it to examine the structural issues of walls
Gunsmiths use it to detect rifle bores for erosion
Borescopes used for medical examination to view inside the human body are referred as endoscopes