Journal of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, 2021, 9, 10-18 https://www.scirp.org/journal/msce ISSN Online: 2327-6053 ISSN Print: 2327-6045 DOI: 10.4236/msce.2021.910002 Oct. 29, 2021 10 Journal of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering Characterization of Automotive Aluminum AA356 by Photo Thermal Radiometric Spectroscopy Alberto Lara Guevara 1,2 , Minerva Robles 3 , Gabriel Placencia 3 , Rubén Velázquez 3 , Ignacio Rojas Rodríguez 3* 1 Facultad de Informática, División de Posgrado, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Querétaro, México 2 Facultad de Ingeniería, Postgrado en Ingeniería, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Querétaro, México 3 Universidad Tecnológica de Querétaro, Querétaro, México Abstract Photothermal radiometric spectroscopy was employed for characterizing an aluminum automotive piston with a steel insert. Amplitude and phase ther- mal property differences allowed the mapping of both metals. Thermal im- ages were generated by using table stages x-y movement. The thermal wave penetrated more deeply in aluminum than in steel. Results demonstrated that this relatively unknown, non-intrusively, non-contact, and non-destructive technique can be used for characterizing a wide variety of metals and other materials. Keywords Photothermal, Nondestructive Evaluation, Thermal Imaging, Amplitude, Phase 1. Introduction Photothermal Radiometric Spectroscopy (PTR) is a powerful technique that has proven successful in characterizing the thermoelectronic properties of semi- conductors and metallic materials [1] [2] [3]. Since this is a non-intrusive, non-destructive and remote-sensing methodology, it is very useful to determine effectively important properties of materials, such as thermal diffusivity, elec- tronic carrier coefficient, minority carrier lifetime, front and back surface re- combination velocities, and so on. Additionally, PTR can be utilized to assess the homogeneity and/or the presence of internal or surface defects or micro- How to cite this paper: Guevara, A.L., Robles, M., Placencia, G., Velázquez, R. and Rodríguez, I.R. (2021) Characterization of Automotive Aluminum AA356 by Photo Thermal Radiometric Spectroscopy. Journal of Materials Science and Chemical Engi- neering, 9, 10-18. https://doi.org/10.4236/msce.2021.910002 Received: September 6, 2021 Accepted: October 26, 2021 Published: October 29, 2021 Copyright © 2021 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access