Bruno F. Pouet

Heterodyne interferometer with two‐wave mixing in photorefractive crystals for ultrasound detection on rough surfaces

Heterodyne interferometers using two‐wave mixing in photorefractive cubic crystals for ultrasound detection on rough surfaces are demonstrated. The speckled scattered beam from a rough surface sample interferes with a planar coherent pump beam inside a photorefractive crystal. A third frequency‐shifted beam is used to read the grating. The diffracted readout beam and the transmitted signal beam are wavefront matched, resulting in an optimal heterodyne interference signal. The signal to noise ratio for the two commonly used crystallographic configurations with cubic crystals, G∥〈110〉∥ and G∥〈001〉, where G is the grating wave vector, are investigated. Very good sensitivity is demonstrated for the detection of small amplitude ultrasonic surface displacements.

Dynamic holographic interferometry by photorefractive crystals for quantitative deformation measurements.

A holographic interferometer that uses two-wave mixing in a photorefractive (Bi12SiO20) crystal under an applied ac field is described. The interferometer uses a repetitive sequence of separate record and readout times to obtain quasi real-time holographic interferograms of vibrating objects. It is shown that a good signal-to-noise ratio of the interferometer is obtained by turning off the object illumination and the applied ac field during readout of the hologram. The good signal-to-noise ratio of the resulting holographic interferograms enables phase measurement, which allows for quantitative deformation analysis.

Synchronized reference updating technique for electronic speckle interferometry

In this paper, a video-based speckle interferometric method using a continuous reference updating technique is presented. Unlike conventional ESPI techniques, this methodsynchronizes the optical interferometric detection system with the acoustic stressing of the test object, and includes continuous renewal of the reference image. It is shown that the susceptibility of the method to environmental noise caused by vibration, temperature gradients, or thermal currents is substantially lower than that of conventional techniques. The application of this technique to the detection of defects in adhesively bonded structures is demonstrated.

Additive/subtractive decorrelated electronic speckle pattern interferometry

A hybrid additive-subtractive decorrelated electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) scheme using a continuous reference updating technique is presented. Unlike conventional ESPI techniques, this method uses speckle phase decorrelation between successively subtracted additive correlated speckle images, each of which contains information about the same two states of deformation of a test object undergoing vibrational stressing. It is shown that the susceptibility of this method to environmental noise caused by building vibrations or air currents is significantly lower than that of conventional subtractive ESPI methods, and fringe visibility and contrast are significantly improved over conventional additive ESPI techniques. The ability of this technique to work in a turbulent environment is demonstrated, and application to detection of defects in adhesively bonded structures, a problem of interest to the nondestructive evaluation (NDE) community, is shown.

In-process detection of weld defects using laser-based ultrasound

Laser-based ultrasonic (LBU) measurement shows great promise for on-line monitoring of weld quality in tailor-welded blanks. Tailor-welded blanks are steel blanks made from plates of differing thicknesses and/or properties butt- welded together, they are used in automobile manufacturing to produce body, frame, and closure panels. LBU uses a pulsed laser to generate the ultrasound and a continuous wave laser interferometer to detect the ultrasound at the point of interrogation to perform ultrasonic inspection. LBU enables in-process measurements since there is no sensor contact or near-contact with the workpiece.

Superheterodyne detection of laser generated acoustic waves

A superheterodyne approach to the detection of laser generated acoustic waves is presented. An amplitude modulated laser source is used to generate high frequency, narrow bandwidth acoustic waves, and the resulting surface displacement is detected using a stabilized Michelson interferometer. The detection laser used in the interferometer is amplitude modulated at a frequency that is offset from the generation laser modulation frequency by a fixed amount, allowing for the optical down-conversion of the high frequency intensity modulation associated with acoustic wave propagation to a low and fixed intermediate frequency, thereby obviating the need for high frequency detection electronics. Results are presented demonstrating the approach for the detection of bulk and surface acoustic waves at frequencies of up to 1 GHz.

Adaptive interferometer using self-induced electro-optic modulation

We demonstrate the linear transformation of small phase excursions of a speckled wavefront into modulation of the transmitted intensity using the polarization self-modulation effect in photoconductive electro-optic crystals. The technique is more advantageous than the widely used photorefractive two-wave mixing technique.

Additive-subtractive phase-modulated shearography with synchronized acoustic stressing

A robust electronic shearography technique is described that is immune to ambinet noise. In this technique, additive speckle-interference images containing information about the same two states of deformation of a test object undergoing acoustic stressing are acquired in each video frame. When a spatially nonuniform phase modulation is introduced in every other frame during the video sequence (using a tilting mirror) and the additive interference images are subtracted sequentially using a real-time image processor, the self-interference component of sheared-speckle interference pattern is removed. The susceptibility of this method to environmental noise caused by induced thermal noise and low frequency vibration is demonstrated to be lower than that of conventional substractive shearography methods; fringe visibility and contrast are significantly improved as well. The ability of this technique to work in a turbulent environment is demonstrated, and application to detection of structural defects in adhesively bonded structures, a problem of interest in nondestructive evaluation of structures, is shown.

On-machine characterization of moving paper using a photo-emf laser ultrasonics method

Stiffness properties of paper materials can readily be characterized in the laboratory using conventional ultrasonic techniques. For on-line inspection on a paper machine, due to the high translation velocity and the somewhat fragile nature of the moving paper web, contact ultrasonic techniques using piezoelectric transducers are of limited use. To overcome this limitation, non-contact laser- based ultrasonic techniques can be used. Due to the rough surface of the paper, the reflected light is composed of many speckles. For efficient detection, the receiver must be able to process as many speckles as possible. Adaptive receivers using the photorefractive or photo-emf effects are characterized by a large etendue, and thus, are well suited for detection on paper and paperboard. Moreover, the translation velocity of the moving web implies that the detection system must adapt extremely quickly to the changing speckle pattern. In this work, a photo-emf receiver was used to detect Lamb waves excited using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser in moving paper. Experiments were performed using a variable-speed web simulator at speeds much higher than 1 m.s-1. Results corresponding to various translation speeds are shown, demonstrating the feasibility of laser- based ultrasound for on-machine inspection of paper and paperboard during production.

Additive–subtractive phase-modulated electronic speckle interferometry: analysis of fringe visibility

Fringe-visibility issues of additive-subtractive phase-modulated (ASPM) electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) are explored. ASPM ESPI is a three-step method in which additive-speckle images are acquired rapidly in an analog fashion in every frame of a video sequence, a speckle phase modulation is intentionally introduced between frames, and a digital subtraction of consecutive pairs of additive-speckle images is performed. We show that this scheme has the good high-frequency noise immunity associated with additive-ESPI techniques as well as the good fringe visibility associated with subtractive-ESPI techniques. The method has better fringe visibility than can be obtained with purely additive ESPI and also does not suffer from the fringe distortions that can occur with subtractive ESPI in the presence of high-frequency noise. We show that even if full speckle decorrelation were to occur between the two additive speckle images that are to be subtracted, the visibility of ASPM ESPI fringes can be made to approach unity by suitable adjustment of the reference-to-object beam-intensity ratio.