Didactic Switchgear for Teaching Thermographic Inspection for Electrical Maintenance

Infrared thermography is one of the main techniques of predictive maintenance. It consists of measurements of temperature at a distance and analysis of thermograms. Thermography is widely used in the electrical sector because most electrical equipment presents thermal disturbances before a failure. Currently, there is difficulty in teaching and learning thermographic inspection because practical lessons are usually performed in no suitable teaching equipment. The using actual electrical installations for thermography practical class are not recommended due to the need for the insertion of failures, which is risky for people's safety and can cause arcing and interruption of electricity supply. Thus, in this paper, a prototype was developed for use as a didactic resource for thermography. For this, a set of switchgear was designed and built that simulated common electrical failures: open circuit, poor contact, undersizing of conductors, and interruption of parallel conductors. The assembled didactic switchgear was used in pilot classes with technical and upper-level students from the electricity area who had already taken the class through a real electrical switchgear. All students considered the didactic switchgear better than the real one, with a 100% satisfaction index. From the proposed switchgear and the pilot classes, a tutorial for practical classes and a teaching manual were developed. It was concluded that the didact resource proposed, classes with the proposed set of switchgear, is better than classes in actual facilities, considering the control of teaching resources and the operational safety, as well as people's safety.