We present a technique to measure the mechanical complex amplitude, i.e. the mechanical amplitude and phase of vibration, of an ultrasonic plane wavefield of nanometric amplitude that propagates on a surface. Our aim is to detect perturbations of the initially smooth wavefronts that indicate the presence of flaws in the material. We use bursts of surface acoustic waves (SAWs) and a double-pulsed TV holography system that records two correlograms with time separations down to 1.5 µs. The phases of the correlograms are calculated separately using the spatial Fourier transform method (SFTM) and operated on to obtain the phase change between exposures. In the resultant optical phase map, the field of instantaneous displacements of the surface (that comprises several periods of the SAW) acts as a modulated spatial carrier, now related to the mechanical phase and amplitude, that are extracted by applying the SFTM again.

We describe the detection of bursts of surface acoustic waves by a double-pulsed TV holography technique. We describe mathematically the long- and short-wave bursts in the output correlograms and validate theoretical results with experimental images. The use of short-wave bursts permits us to scan the surface and makes it easier to distinguish, for purposes of nondestructive testing, the disturbances produced by flaws.

Television holography (TVH) can be defined as 'the family of optical measurement techniques based on the electronic recording and processing of holograms'. Image-plane TVH was introduced in the early 1970s with the name 'electronic speckle-pattern interferometry' (ESPI). Since then, TVH has undergone an impressive development and become one of the most promising optical techniques for non-destructive testing and industrial inspection. The aim of this review is to propose an original scheme for the systematic treatment of TVH and to review the existing techniques according to it. In this approach we split the measurement process into four highly independent stages (illumination and observation geometry, temporal treatment, secondary-correlogram generation and fringe-pattern analysis) and establish a common notation to formulate the corresponding techniques. Such a strategy allows the free combination of the techniques proposed for each stage as building blocks to obtain every particular variant of the whole TVH measurement process, whether it has already been reported or not, and also the incorporation of new techniques while retaining compatibility with the existing variants of the previous and following stages.

A method based on fitting the theoretical dispersion curves of Lamb waves to experimental data is presented to determine the thickness and two independent elastic constants of aluminum plates a few millimeters thick. The waves are generated by means of the wedge method using a narrowband source, selecting the wedge angle and the acoustic frequency f so that mainly one mode is excited. A self-developed pulsed electronic speckle pattern interferometry system renders a two dimensional map of the out-of-plane acoustic displacement field at the plate surface, which allows an accurate measurement of the acoustic wavelength lambda(1). For any mode, the relation between lambda(1) and f depends on the three unknown parameters, so at least three experimental measurements (lambda(1i),f(i)) with different frequencies and/or different modes are required to calculate them. The suitability of different Lamb modes to determine each parameter when the others are known is studied, as well as the conditions that the experimental set of values must fulfill to calculate all three parameters. Numerous Lamb modes at different frequencies are generated in each plate, and a fitting is made based on the minimization of the error function, resulting in an accuracy better than 1%.

We present a novel capability of the TV holography technique applied to the non-destructive testing of mechanical parts or structures with the form of a plate or a shell, which consists of the recording of high quality synthetic movies of the spatio-temporal evolution of instantaneous ultrasonic displacement fields of the surface under inspection. Moreover, in the case of narrowband acoustic excitation, movies of the spatio-temporal evolution of the acoustic amplitude and of the total acoustic phase can also be generated. Some examples of the application of the technique to flaw detection in aluminium plates using surface waves are presented. As a previous step for evaluating the context and the advantages of the new capability presented, a description of the state of the art with a comparative analysis about non-destructive testing techniques based on optical probing of ultrasound, focused on shell structures, is included in the first part of this article.