Design and Experiment Research of a Non-Contact Optical Fiber F-P Ultrasound Sensor for Detecting Surface Defects

Abstract

Laser ultrasound technology has many advantages such as being non-contact, nondestructive, fast, accurate and low cost. Therefore it is usually used as an effective way to detect and characterize small surface or subsurface breaking cracks. The optical fiber F-P sensor is adapted to laser ultrasound detection field because it can detect ultrasound signals non-contact. But the optical fiber F-P sensor deviates from working point easily because of machining error and external factors in practical applications. It leads to output signal attenuation and the decreasing of signal noise ratio. On this problem, an optical fiber F-P sensing system based on two wavelength quadrature-shifted demodulation technique is designed. The mathematical model of sensing system is established. Differential Evolution Algorithm is introduced to establish the optimal model of sensing system for the first time. The structure of sensing system is optimized designed. The non-contact laser ultrasound experimental devices based on optical fiber F-P senor are established for detecting surface defects. The experimental results show this sensor can detect surface defects effectively. It has higher sensitivity and larger signal-to-noise ratio.