Shearography - Shearing Function

Shearing Function

When a surface area is illuminated with a highly coherent laser light, a stochastical interference pattern is created. This interference pattern is called a speckle, and is projected on a rigid camera's CCD chip. Analogous with Electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI), to obtain results from the speckle we need to compare it with a known reference light. Shearography uses the test object itself as the known reference; it shears the image so a double image is created. The superposition of the two images, a shear image, represents the surface of the test object at this unloaded state. This makes the method much more insensible to external vibrations and noise. By applying a small load, the material will deform. A nonuniform material quality will generate a nonuniform movement of the surface of the test object. A new shearing image is recorded at the loaded state and is compared with the sheared image before load. If a flaw is present, it will be seen.