EXTREME shearography: high-speed shearography instrument for in-plane surface strain measurements during an impact event

Abstract

This work presents the design and the latest experimental results on the surface strain measurements during an impact event obtained with the EXTREME high-speed shearography instrument. The shearography technique is used in this project to provide a quantitative measurement of the surface strain development at the first moments of the impact event (μs time scale) which may reveal the initiation of the failure mechanisms in composite materials. Experimentally measured surface strain components over the field of view will be used as input and validation data for new numerical and analytical models of the impact response of composites. The new configuration of the shearography instrument realises measurements of the in- and out-of-plane surface strain components to improve coupling with the numerical models. Two viewing directions (shearing interferometers) with a double-frame approach are used to capture the interferograms during the impact. The interferometers realise a double-imaging Mach-Zehnder scheme for the spatial phase-shifting with independent control of the shearing amount and the carrier frequency. The set of technical parameters of the developed shearography instrument makes it one of the most extreme applications of shearography for material characterisation. The framework for this work is the “EXTREME Dynamic Loading – Pushing the Boundaries of Aerospace Composite Material Structures” Horizon 2020 project.