• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.347-354
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• 2012

Using a single-line pulsed laser beam is well known as a useful noncontact method to generate a directional surface acoustic wave. In this method, different laser beam energy profiles produce different waveforms and frequency characteristics. In this paper, we considered two typical kinds of laser beam energy profiles, Gaussian and square-like, to find out a difference in the frequency characteristics. To achieve this, mathematical models were proposed first for Gaussian laser beam profile and square-like respectively, both of which depended on the laser beam width. To verify the theoretical models, experimental setups with a cylindrical lens and a line-slit mask were respectively designed to produce a line laser beam with Gaussian spatial energy profile and square-like. The frequency responses of the theoretical models showed good agreement with experimental results in terms of the existence of harmonic frequency components and the shift of the first peak frequencies to low.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.323-327
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• 2013

A laser ultrasonic inspection system has the advantage of nondestructive testing. It is a non-contact mode using a laser interferometer to measure the vertical displacement of the surface of a material caused by the propagation of ultrasonic signals with the remote ultrasonic generated by laser. After raising the ultrasonic signal with a broadband frequency range using a pulsed laser beam, the laser beam is focused to a small point to measure the ultrasonic signal because it provides an excellent measurement resolution. In this paper, foreign materials are measured by a non-destructive and non-contact method using the laser ultrasonic inspection system. Mixed foreign material on the corroded part is assumed and the laser ultrasonic experiment is conducted. An ultrasonic wave is generated by pulse laser from the back of the specimen and an ultrasonic signal is acquired from the same location of the front side using continuous wave laser and Confocal Fabry-Perot Interferometer (CFPI). The characteristic of the ultrasonic signal of existing foreign material is analyzed and the location and size of foreign material is measured.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.657-666
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• 2020

A rotational pulse-echo ultrasonic propagation imager that can inspect cylindrical specimens for material nondestructive evaluations is proposed herein. In this system, a laser-generated ultrasonic bulk wave is used for inspection, which enables a clear visualization of subsurface defects with a precise reproduction of the damage shape and size. The ultrasonic waves are generated by a Q-switched laser that impinges on the outer surface of the specimen walls. The generated waves travel through the walls and their echo is detected by a Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV) at the same point. To obtain the optimal Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of the measured signal, the LDV requires the sensed surface to be at a right angle to the laser beam and at a predefined constant standoff distance from the laser head. For flat specimens, these constraints can be easily satisfied by performing a raster scan using a dual-axis linear stage. However, this arrangement cannot be used for cylindrical specimens owing to their curved nature. To inspect the cylindrical specimens, a circular scan technology is newly proposed for pulse-echo laser ultrasound. A rotational stage is coupled with a single-axis linear stage to inspect the desired area of the specimen. This system arrangement ensures that the standoff distance and beam incidence angle are maintained while the cylindrical specimen is being inspected. This enables the inspection of a curved specimen while maintaining the optimal SNR. The measurement result is displayed in parallel with the on-going inspection. The inspection data used in scanning are mapped from rotational coordinates to linear coordinates for visualization and post-processing of results. A graphical user interface software is implemented in C++ using a QT framework and controls all the individual blocks of the system and implements the necessary image processing, scan calculations, data acquisition, signal processing and result visualization.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.12
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• pp.1877-1883
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• 2010

We examined the mechanism of generation of higher harmonics by theoretically analyzing the frequency characteristics of a narrow-band surface wave generated by a laser beam with line-arrayed slit masks. We experimentally analyzed the effects of slit opening width and laser intensity on the acoustic nonlinearity of aluminum 6061-T6 alloy by using single-slit and line-arrayed slit masks. The magnitude of the harmonic wave depended on the slit opening width. In our experiment, we generated a 1.75-MHz surface wave by using an arrayed slit with intervals of 1.67 mm. The magnitude of the second harmonic component decreased about by 80% when the slit opening width was increased from 0.5 mm to 1.0 mm. In addition, the relationship between the magnitudes of the fundamental and the second harmonic wave showed good linearity, which agreed well with the typical behavior of acoustic nonlinearity.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.714-720
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• 2023

Laser cleaning has the advantages of environmental protection, precision, and high efficiency, and has good prospects for application in removing oxide films on the surface of aluminum alloy. This paper discusses the cleaning threshold and cleaning mechanism of aluminum alloy surface oxide film. A nanosecond pulsed laser was used to remove a 5-㎛-thick oxide film from the surface of 7A04 aluminum alloy, and the target surface temperature and cleaning depth were simulated. The effects of different laser energy densities on the surface morphology of the aluminum alloy were analyzed, and the plasma motion process was recorded using a high-speed camera. The temperature measurement results of the experiment are close to the simulation results. The results show that the laser cleaning of aluminum alloy oxide film is mainly based on the vaporization mechanism and the shock wave generated by the explosion.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.87-94
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• 2005

In recent, Lamb wave has been actively studied for non-destructive testing of plate. Among those studios, laser generation method of focused Lamb wave is expected to have high spatial resolution with advantages of non-contact testing. In this method, the laser beam is illuminated on the surface of object by through an arrayed-arc slit, and then the energy of the generated Lamb wave is concentrated at a focus of arc. This focusing effect improves the spatial resolution, which is dependant on the geometries of arrayed-arc slit. In this paper, the relationships between the parameters of arc-shaped slit and the focusing ability of the generated Lamb wave was investigated by the simulation based parametric study The results show that to improve the focusing effect, radius of illuminated laser, angle of arc and number of arcs must be increased, which minimum radius of arc and distance between arcs(=wavelength) must be decreased. These results are expected to be used as a guide to design the proper shape of slit.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.457-466
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• 2014

This paper presents an analytic and numerical simulation of the generation and propagation of pico-second ultrasound with nano-scale wavelength, enabling the production of bulk waves in thin films. An analytic model of laser-matter interaction and elasto-dynamic wave propagation is introduced to calculate the elastic strain pulse in microstructures. The model includes the laser-pulse absorption on the material surface, heat transfer from a photon to the elastic energy of a phonon, and acoustic wave propagation to formulate the governing equations of ultra-short ultrasound. The excitation and propagation of acoustic pulses produced by ultra-short laser pulses are numerically simulated for an aluminum substrate using the finite-difference method and compared with the analytical solution. Furthermore, Fourier analysis was performed to investigate the frequency spectrum of the simulated elastic wave pulse. It is concluded that a pico-second bulk wave with a very high frequency of up to hundreds of gigahertz is successfully generated in metals using a 100-fs laser pulse and that it can be propagated in the direction of thickness for thickness less than 100 nm.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.774-779
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• 2003

Arc-shaped line array slits have been used for the laser generation of focused Lamb waves. The spatially expanded Nd:YAG pulse laser was illuminated through the arc-shaped line array slit on the surface of a sample plate to generate the Lamb waves of the same pattern as the slit. Then the generated Lamb waves were focused at the point of which distance from the slit position is dependent on the curvature of slit arc. The proposed method showed better spatial resolution than the conventional linear array slit in the detection of laser machined linear defect and drill machined circular defect on aluminum plates of 1mm thickness.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.390-402
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• 2006

The elastic properties and thickness of mullite environmental barrier coatings grown through chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on silicon carbide substrates were measured using frequency domain photoacoustic microscopy. In this technique, extremely narrow bandwidth surface acoustic waves are generated with an amplitude modulated laser source. A photorefractive crystal based interferometer is used to detect the resulting surface displacement. The complex displacement field is mapped as a function of source-to-receiver distance in order to extract the wavelength of the surface acoustic wave at a given excitation frequency, and the phase velocity is determined. The coatings tested exhibited spatial variations in thickness and mechanical properties. The measured surface wave dispersion curves were used to extract an effective value for the elastic modulus and the coating thickness. Nanoindentation was used to validate the measurements of the effective elastic modulus. The average elastic modulus measured through the coating thickness using nanoindentation is compared to the effective modulus found using the photoacoustic system. Optical microscopy is used to validate the thickness measurements. The results indicate that the photoacoustic microscopy technique can be used to estimate the effective elastic properties in coatings exhibiting spatial inhomogeneities, potentially providing valuable feedback for the optimization of the CVD growth process.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.27-32
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• 2000

In this paper, ultrasonic wave in the thermoelastic regime was generated in a steel disk by illuminating a pulse laser (Q-switched Nd:YAG) on the surface of the sample and was detected on the other side by Michelson interferometer which was stabilized by feed back control. The experimentally detected displacement waveform of the ultrasonic wave showed good agreement with the theoretically expected one. Also it was shown that sound speeds of longitudinal and shear wave were similar to ones measured by pulse-echo method using a contact transducer. As an application of the noncontact ultrasonic measurement by using laser based ultrasonics, the sound speed in the sample was monitored while the sample was heated in a furnace, and the result showed that it decreased according to the increase of sample temperature.