Christ Glorieux

Investigation of contact acoustic nonlinearity in delaminations by shearographic imaging, laser doppler vibrometric scanning and finite difference modeling

Full-field dynamic shearography and laser Doppler vibrometric scanning are used to investigate the local contact acoustic nonlinear generation of delamination-induced effects on the vibration of a harmonically excited composite plate containing an artificial defect. Nonlinear elastic behavior caused by the stress-dependent boundary conditions at the delamination interfaces of a circular defect is also simulated by a 3-D second-order, finite-difference, staggered-grid model (displacement-stress formulation). Both the experimental and simulated data reveal an asymmetric motion of the layer above the delamination, which acts as a membrane vibrating with enhanced displacement amplitude around a finite offset displacement. The spectrum of the membrane motion is enriched with clapping-induced harmonics of the excitation frequency. In case of a sufficiently thin and soft membrane, the simulations reveal clear modal behavior at sub-harmonic frequencies caused by inelastic clapping.

Converting sunlight into audible sound by means of the photoacoustic effect: The Heliophone

One hundred and thirty-five years after Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Charles Sumner Tainter explored the photoacoustic effect, and about 40 years after Rosencwaig and Gersho modeled the effect in a photoacoustic cell configuration, the phenomenon is revisited in a Heliophone device that converts sunlight into sound. The light is focused on a carbon blackened copper coated Kapton foil in an acoustic cell by means of a compound parabolic collimator, and its intensity is modulated by a mechanical chopper. A horn is employed to make the sound audible without electronic amplification. The description of the photoacoustic effect that was introduced by Rosencwaig and Gersho is extended to a cell-horn configuration, in which the periodically heated air above the foil acts as an oscillating piston, driving acoustic waves in the horn. The pressure in the cavity-horn assembly is calculated by considering the air layer piston as an equivalent volume velocity source. The importance of the carbon black (soot) layer to enhance light absorption, but above all to enhance the photothermal excitation efficiency, is elucidated by means of an experimentally supported physical model.

Full elastic characterization of absorptive rubber using laser excited guided ultrasonic waves

Because of the highly damping nature of rubber, it is difficult to characterize its dynamic elastic properties using classical methods. In this paper, an experimental approach employing laser excited guided acoustic waves is proposed to accurately determine the real and imaginary part of the longitudinal and shear elastic modulus of a rubber layer. From the spatiotemporal evolution of a propagating laser excited Lamb wave measured by a laser Doppler vibrometer, which is scanning along a line perpendicular to a line of excitation, the phase velocity dispersion curves in the wave number - frequency domain are obtained. The results are interpreted in the framework of a detailed semianalytical study, analyzing the influence of elastic damping on the Lamb dispersion curves. This analysis is exploited to adequately fit the experimental dispersion curves and thus extract information about the elastic moduli and absorption coefficients of the rubber plate. The results are validated by a pulse-echo measurement, an...