The relationship between wood and its degree of humidity is one of the most important aspects of its use in construction and restoration. The wood presents a behavior similar to a sponge, therefore, moisture is related to its expansion and contraction. The nondestructive evaluation (NDE) of the amount of moisture in wood materials allows to define, e.g., the restoration procedures of buildings or artworks. In this work, an integrated study of two non-contact techniques is presented. Infrared thermography (IRT) was able to retrieve thermal parameters of the wood related to the amount of water added to the samples, while the interference pattern generated by speckles was used to quantify the expansion and contraction of wood that can be related to the amount of water. In twenty-seven wooded samples, a known quantity of water was added in a controlled manner. By applying advanced image processing to thermograms and specklegrams, it was possible to determine fundamental values controlling both the absorption of water and the main thermophysical parameters that link the samples. On the one hand, results here shown should be considered preliminary because the experimental values obtained by IRT need to be optimized for low water contents introduced into the samples. On the other hand, speckle interferometry by applying an innovative procedure provided robust results for both high and low water contents.

Aerosol jet printing (AJP) technology has emerged as a transformative tool in neuroprosthetic device development, offering high accuracy and versatility in fabricating complex and miniaturized structures, which are essential for advanced neural interfaces. This review explores the fundamental principles of AJP, highlighting its unique aerosol generation and concentrated deposition mechanisms, which facilitate the use of different materials on a variety of substrates. The advantages of AJP, including its device scalability, ability to print on flexible and stretchable substrates, and compatibility with a wide range of biocompatible materials, are examined in the context of neuroprosthetic applications. Key implementations, such as the fabrication of neural interfaces, the development of microelectrode arrays, and the integration with flexible electronics, are discussed, showcasing the potential of AJP to revolutionize neuroprosthetic devices. Additionally, this review addresses the challenges of biocompatibility and technical limitations, such as the long-term stability of electroconductive traces. The review concludes with a discussion of future directions and innovations, emphasizing the realization of sensorized prosthetic limbs through the incorporation of tactile sensors, the integration of biosensors for monitoring physiological parameters, and the development of intelligent prostheses. These prospects underscore the role of AJP in the advancement of neuroprosthetic applications and its pathway toward clinical translation and commercialization.

Electromyographic (EMG) sensors are essential tools for analyzing muscle activity, but traditional designs often face challenges such as motion artifacts, signal variability, and limited wearability. This study introduces a novel EMG sensor fabricated using Aerosol Jet Printing (AJP) technology that addresses these limitations with a focus on precision, flexibility, and stability. The innovative sensor design minimizes air interposition at the skin–electrode interface, thereby reducing variability and improving signal quality. AJP enables the precise deposition of conductive materials onto flexible substrates, achieving a thinner and more conformable sensor that enhances user comfort and wearability. Performance testing compared the novel sensor to commercially available alternatives, highlighting its superior impedance stability across frequencies, even under mechanical stress. Physiological validation on a human participant confirmed the sensor’s ability to accurately capture muscle activity during rest and voluntary contractions, with clear differentiation between low and high activity states. The findings highlight the sensor’s potential for diverse applications, such as clinical diagnostics, rehabilitation, and sports performance monitoring. This work establishes AJP technology as a novel approach for designing wearable EMG sensors, providing a pathway for further advancements in miniaturization, strain-insensitive designs, and real-world deployment. Future research will explore optimization for broader applications and larger populations.

In building construction, it is very important to reduce energy consumption and provide thermal comfort. In this regard, defects in insulating panels can compromise the capability of these panels of reducing the heat flow by conduction with the surroundings. In recent years, both experimental techniques and numerical methods have been used for investigating the effect of defects on the thermal behavior of building panels. The main novelty of this work regards the application of both numerical and experimental approaches based on infrared thermography techniques for studying the effects of defects such as debonding on the insulation properties of cork panels. In particular, the effects of defects were investigated by using the Long Pulse Thermography technique and then by analyzing the thermal behavior of the panel during the cooling phase. Results show the capability of the proposed approaches in describing the effects of defects in cork panels such as detachments and the benefit effect of a shield coating in improving the insulation properties of the panel.

Using composite materials in turbine blades has become common in the wind power industry due to their mechanical properties and low mass. This work aims to investigate the effectiveness of the active infrared thermography technique as a non-destructive inspection tool to identify defects in composite material structures of turbine blades. Experiments were carried out by heating the sample and capturing thermographic images using a thermal camera in four different scenarios, changing the heating strategy. Such a preliminary experiments are prodromic to build, in future, the so-called optimal experiment design for thermal property estimation. The experimental results using two heaters arranged symmetrically on the sample detected the presence of the defect through temperature curves extracted from thermal images, where temperature asymmetries of 25% between the regions with and without defect occurred. Moreover, when only a larger heater was used in transmission mode, the defect was detected based on differences between normalized excess temperatures on the side with and without the defect in the order of 20%. Additionally, numerical simulations were carried out to present solutions for improving defect detection. It was demonstrated that active infrared thermography is an efficient technique for detecting flaws in composite material structures of turbine blades. This research contributes to advancing knowledge in inspecting composite materials.