NDT Techniques: Laser-based
is added to the object wave at the recording plane. The
The purpose of non-destructive evaluation is to
determine whether or not a component has a fault
without causing failure during the test. A lot of optical
techniques are suitable for this application as they are
non-contacting and can detect surface displacements
that result from the application of small loads. The
skill is in applying the force in such a way that it causes
the defect to manifest itself as a discontinuity in
surface displacement. The discontinuity then appears
as an irregularity in some optical pattern, thus en-
abling the faulty region to be identified. Various
methods of creating such a surface displacement and
visualizing it have been investigated for a long time,
but the advent of lasers has given a remarkable impetus
to the field. Optical techniques of measurement are
among the most sensitive known today; in addition,
they are non-contacting, non-invasive, and fast.
Any of the characteristics of a light wave—
amplitude, phase, length, frequency, polarization, and
direction of propagation—can be modulated by the
quantity to be measured. On demodulation, the value
of the measurand at a spatial point and at a particular
time instant can be obtained. Optical methods can
effect measurement at discrete points, or over the
whole field, with extremely fine spatial resolution.
Since the 1980s, there has been a significant increase in
both the number and volume of applications—
holography, holographic interferometry, speckle
methods and moire! techniques. This article describes
these laser-based methods and discusses the results of
‘‘classical’’ as well as latest tests.
1. Holography
Holography was born out of a challenging techno-
logical problem—the need to improve the resolution
of the electron microscope, which was limited by the
spherical aberration of the electron lenses. Since a long
coherence length source is needed to record a holo-
gram of an object, holography remained practically
dormant after its invention by Gabor in 1948 until the
arrival of the laser. Earlier recordings of three-
dimensional objects were made on spectroscopic
plates, and the results were very impressive. Holo-
graphy, therefore, came to be known as three-
dimensional (3D) photography. However, it is more
than ordinary stereo photography as it provides 3D
views with changing perspectives.
Holography records the complex amplitude of a
wave coming from an object rather than the intensity
distribution in the image, as is the case in photography
(Fig. 1). Holography literally means total recording,
that is, recording of both the phase and the amplitude
of a wave. The recording of the complex amplitude is
accomplished by interference inasmuch as all the
detectors in the optical regime are energy detectors.
For recording amplitude and phase, a reference wave
recording is performed on a variety of media (photo-
emulsions, photopolymers, thermoplastics, etc.). The
record, called a hologram, is like a window with a
memory; it can reconstruct a truly 3D image of the
original object. Practical considerations are detailed in
Cloud (1995).
Different perspectives of the scene are seen through
different portions of the hologram. In addition to
recording holograms of 3D objects, several new
practical applications of holography have emerged—
holographic interferometry being one of the most
important.
2. Holographic Interferometry
Holographic interferometry (HI), which provides
interferometric comparison of real objects or events
separated in time and space, is a technique of un-
paralleled applications. Various kinds of HI have been
developed, e.g., real-time, double-exposure, and time-
averaged HI. Furthermore, HI can be performed with
one, two, or more reference waves, which can be of the
same or different wavelengths. The reference wave can
come from the same side of the hologram as the object
wave, or from the other side of the hologram. HI can
be performed with a continuous wave laser, or a
pulsed laser. The possibilities are endless, and so are
the applications. The detection of an internal defect of
polythene pipe is shown in Fig. 2.
Practically, HI achieves the comparison of two
wavefronts from the real object. These two waves are
usually from the initial (unstressed) state and the final
(stressed) state of the object. However, it is assumed
that the microstructure of the surface does not change
as a result of loading: the two waves differ because of
path difference changes rather than microstructural
changes.
Probably the most fundamental technique is double-
exposure HI. Here the two states of the same object are
recorded on the same medium: the subsequent object
waves are reconstructed simultaneously and interfere,
giving a reconstructed image on which a fringe pattern
is superimposed as a function of the displacement. For
real-time HI, a hologram of the object is made,
processed, and placed back exactly at the same
location it occupied during recording. Reconstruction
of the hologram by the reference wave generates a
replica of the original object wave, which propagates
in the direction of the original wave. If the object wave
is also present, these two waves thus interfere when the
object is loaded. The object wave carries the de-
formation phase information, and an interference
pattern is observed which changes in real time with the
load. The response of the object to the external loading
agent can therefore be monitored continuously until
the fringes become too fine to be resolved. This
1
NDT Techniques: Laser-based

Beam Mirror centers on the surface of the diffuse object. The

splitter amplitudes and phases of these scattered waves are
Diaphragm Lens random variables. The patches of light (known as
speckle) often act like optical noise, reducing the
sharpness and quality of data. In other cases speckle is
Laser employed in a useful way, becoming the basis for the
signal. When the surface of the diffuser from which
speckle arise changes, then so does the speckle pattern.
Lens If the surface is simply translated, the speckle pattern
Sample
can remain the same but may be in a different location.
A double exposure recording of an image of such a
pattern, recorded before and after translation, will
Mirror contain a large number of equally spaced speckles. If
parts of the surface move by different amounts, a
double-exposure recording will contain pairs of un-
equal separation. Speckle can be used in various ways
to make measurements. The most important of the
Hologram different types of speckle interferometry are double-
exposure recording, speckle interferometry, and elec-
Figure 1 tronic speckle pattern interferometry.
Setup for recording holograms.

3.2 Double Exposure Recording

Double photographic exposure recording, sometimes
called speckle patterns or a specklegram, can be used
to measure in-plane surface movement and strain.
Data are extracted from the specklegram by measuring
the distance between the speckles making up each pair.
Alternatively, when illuminated by coherent light,
each pair in the specklegram forms a set of Young’s
fringes that can be used to determine the speckle pair
spacing (Fig. 3). This procedure requires the pro-
duction of a transparency.

3.3 Speckle Interferometry

Figure 2
Example of holographic interferometric pattern: internal
defect in a polythene pipe.
technique is also known as single-exposure or live-
fringe HI. In time-average HI, the hologram is
recorded when the object is moving or vibrating. If the
vibration is sinusoidal, the object stays longer in the
two extreme positions than in the intermediate ones—
the fringe patterns are directly related to the amplitude
of displacement.
3. Speckle Metrology
3.1 The Speckle Phenomenon
Illumination of a diffuse object by coherent light
produces a grainy structure in space. This grainy light
distribution, known as a speckle pattern, results from
self-interference of numerous waves from scattering
When the speckle pattern is mixed with a plane or a
spherical wave, each speckle interferes with it. If parts
of the surface move in such a way that the phase of
some of the speckles is out-of-phase with the plane
wave, a set of fringes can be observed. By altering the
directions of the various waves, the interferometry can
be made sensitive to different types of motion.
3.4 Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry
(ESPI )
ESPI is in fact a type of television or electronic
holography, forming a hologram on the face of a
television camera or a charged-coupled device (CCD)
array. The fringes must be separated by at least two
pixels to be resolvable by the camera. Consequently,
the angle subtended by the object and reference waves
must be small (no more than a few degrees). The next
problem is reconstruction from the recording. Al-

2

Figure 3
Photographic speckle correlation: displacements visualized
by Young’s fringes.
though the information could be entered on an a
computer, the wavefront computed and the image
electronically reconstructed by back projecting the
wavefront, this is not normally done. The most
frequently used procedure is to add up a number of
images to produce what amounts to a time-averaged
pattern of the object field. The resulting fringes are in
the same position as those for a time-averaged holo-
graphic interferogram, but with lower contrast.
4. The MoireT Effect
The moire! effect is the mechanical interference of light
by superimposed networks of lines. Such a pattern is
formed whenever a repetitive structure, such as a
mesh, is overlaid with another such structure. The two
structures need not be identical. There is evidence that
the effect was noted in ancient times. Modern examples
that are easily observed include the effect when two
layers of coarse textile are brought together, the bars
observed on television when the scene includes a
striped shirt or a building with regular joins, and the
pattern seen through two rows of mesh or a picket
fence from a distance.
The phenomena are readily observed in white light,
and have been used extensively for experimental strain
analysis. The measurement of normal strain by the
moire! technique includes the bonding of a deformable
specimen grating on the test piece. It is then super-
imposed with a master grating to create moire! fringes
which are related to in-plane displacements. To cal-
culate strains, the derivative of the moire! fringe order
with respect to position co-ordinates must be found. A
host of techniques can be employed to perform these
basic tasks, and many of these are described in the
NDT Techniques: Laser-based
Figure 4
Example of specimen grid moire! : displacements after
tensile testing of a girth weld on a steel pipeline containing
a defect.
extensive literature on moire! analysis of deformation
and strain (e.g. Sirohi and Chau 1999). The sensitivity
of ‘‘classical’’ moire! is limited by the grating frequency,
which is generally obtained photographically and is
practically about 0.05 mm. Figure 4 shows an example
specimen grid moire! .
There is another way of performing moire! measure-
ments that uses laser light, which utilizes the fun-
damental concept of the moire! effect. The concept of
diffraction by a grating and the phenomenon of two-
beam interference are used to extend the capability
and utility of moire! measurement far beyond the
limitations of geometric moire! . The result is a moire!
technique capable of truly interferometric sensitivities.
The wavelength of light is now the yardstick and
displacements of fractions of a micrometer can be
measured. This technique is finding increasing favor
with experimentalists researching material character-
ization, fracture, and other areas for which high
sensitivity is needed but other interferometric tech-
niques are not suitable. Moire! interferometry can be
viewed strictly as a process involving two-beam
interference and diffraction, and nothing needs to be
said about the moire! effect. In this model, the specimen
carries a phase-type diffraction grating that alters the
phase rather than the amplitude of incident light in a
regular and repetitive way.
When the specimen is deformed, the grating on its
surface deforms with it. The specimen grating will
change in frequency and direction systematically from
point to point. Consequently, plane wavefronts illu-
minating the specimen grating will be diffracted, but
because of localized changes in the frequency and the
direction of the grating lines, the emergent wavefronts
will be slightly warped. If two such wavefronts are
utilized simultaneously, and if their angles of incidence
are chosen properly, then the diffraction angles are
such that they interfere with one another. The resulting
interference fringe pattern of these diffracted and
warped wavefronts is a contour map of the angular
separation of the two diffracted orders. Because the
angular deviation of the diffracted light is a measure of
3
NDT Techniques: Laser-based

the grating spatial frequency, the contour map can be holographic and speckle developments, and in
viewed as a map of distortion of the specimen grating. Amidror (2000) for moire! techniques.

5. Conclusion
Although laser-based NDT techniques are only about
30 years old, they have become an integral part of the
arsenal at the disposal of the experimental mechanist,
and have found a broad field of applications in
scientific and industrial research. There was not space
in this article to mention emerging techniques. Good
surveys are to be found in Jones and Wykes (1998) for
Bibliography
Amidror I 2000 The Theory of the MoireT Phenomenon. Kluwer,
Dordrecht, The Netherlands
Cloud G 1995 Optical Methods of Engineering Analysis. Cam-
bridge University Press, Cambridge
Jones R, Wykes C 1998 Holographic and Speckle Interferometers,
2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Sirohi R S, Chau F S 1999 Optical Method of Measurement.
Dekker, New York
P. M. Boone

Copyright ' 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted
in any form or by any means : electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Encyclopedia of Materials : Science and Technology
ISBN: 0-08-0431526
pp. 6018–6021