Elastic constants determination of anisotropic materials from phase velocities of acoustic waves generated and detected by lasers.

Abstract

This paper describes a method which allows the synthesis of acoustic plane waves by means of laser ultrasonic techniques. When a laser line source radiates at the surface of an anisotropic material, intricate effects are observed on signals obtained by transmission experiments. The material characterization from such a set of signals is not a trivial task since it requires correctly selecting the data necessary for the elastic constants determination, by distinguishing them from all the parasitic phenomena. In the present paper, it is shown that a judicious sum of signals obtained for various positions of the line source at the surface of a sample leads to the synthesis of an acoustic plane wave for which the odd phenomena disappear. Moreover, by applying a constant delay between the various signals, acoustic plane waves can be synthesized with varied refracted angles. One of the advantages of this technique is to offer convenient access to the phase velocity, providing an easier determination of the elastic constants. This method is successively applied to recover the stiffness coefficients of a silicon crystal and of a composite material. The good agreement between the so-recovered elastic constants and values given by other processes shows the contribution of such a method in the field of material characterization.