AMI is built for questions that surface methods can't answer.

Thickness sounds like a solved problem until the part is curved, the coating is soft, or a contact gauge cannot be trusted near a critical edge. You need a thickness reading you can act on: at the point that matters, with confidence in the number, and without leaving a mark on the surface.

Chameleon resolves coating or film thickness from reflected terahertz light, in a non-contact and non-destructive way. And it works on all substrate types – not just metallic ones. The same physical principle that makes multilayer measurement possible also delivers precise single-boundary thickness on standard substrates, with no compression of the coating and no surface damage at the measurement point.

When a coating system is built from multiple layers, total thickness does not tell you which layer is drifting, which is missing, or whether the build matches the intended design. Cross-sectioning gives the answer but destroys the sample, and most non-destructive tools collapse the stack into a single number.

Chameleon resolves the individual layer thicknesses inside a multilayer stack from a single non-destructive measurement. You can review whether each layer matches design intent, whether the stack sequence is correct, and whether one specific layer accounts for the variation seen in total build.

Corrosion under a coating is the failure mode that matters most in coatings work, and the one standard tools struggle to see early. ISO 12944 evaluation depends on scribe creep measurement, which traditionally means removing the coating, with all the variability and time cost that entails, before considering replicate counts and calendar pressure on test programmes.

Chameleon images corrosion underneath an intact coating and produces a 2D map of the affected area that can be measured against ISO 12944 creep criteria. Because the coating stays on the sample, you can detect corrosion onset earlier in the test, follow the same test coupon over time, and reach a decision with fewer replicates, freeing capacity to evaluate more candidates per cycle.

In composite structures, the defects that matter to performance (wrinkles in the layup, delamination between plies, internal voids) sit below the surface, outside the reach of visible inspection, and deeper than can be reached with ultrasound. Destructive sectioning answers one location at a time. You need a way to see inside the part without cutting it open.

Chameleon images internal features of composite structures from the reflected terahertz light, surfacing defects like fibre wrinkles and ply separations that other inspection methods cannot reach. The output is a spatially resolved view you can evaluate against acceptance criteria.