The Effectiveness of Laser Shearography for the Inspection of Wall Thinning in a Large Aluminum Plate

Laser shearography is a powerful optical tool that is able to directly measure the displacement derivatives using interferometric effects. Stroboscopic shearography provides a full field, reliable and repeatable inspection process that facilitates defect visualization. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of laser shearography for inspection of a large aluminum plate with a large wall thinning. A modified Michelson interferometer is introduced in order to inspect the entire aluminum plate simultaneously. The wall thinning is visualized as the region of the anomaly in the quasi-uniform and homologous shearography fringe pattern. The boundaries of the wall thinning cannot be indicated precisely due to the nature of the formation of shearography fringes. Therefore, the small shearing method is applied to determine the dimensions of the wall thinning. This approach allows for the detection of the wall thinning in the wider range of excitation frequencies. The wall thinning is successfully detected using the small shearing method as a light rectangle in the inconspicuous background. Finally, a novel averaging approach is proposed to eliminate the effects of noise and uncertainty in the calculation of the boundaries. Using this approach, the shearography interferometric effects are significantly reduced.