Fabry-Perot laser ultrasonic elastic anisotropy measurements on a moving paper web.

On-line measurement of material properties is a goal of many manufactures for production improvement and quality control. In the paper industry, the elastic stiffness of the paper web needs to be accurately measured and controlled online. Currently, contact ultrasonic methods are employed to measure the elastic constants of paper offline. Piezoelectric transducers are placed in contact with the paper surface to generate and detect plate wave modes, known as Lamb wave modes, in the paper in both the machine and cross directions. Laser ultrasonics offers a new approach to making elastic wave measurements that does not require contacting the paper web. A pulsed laser generates ultrasound in the paper by delivering a high intensity short impulse to the paper through thermoelastic expansion. An optical interferometer is used to demodulate the small phase modulation that the elastic wave produces on a continuous probe laser beam. Difficulty in applying this approach to online measurements of rapidly moving paper webs arises from the appearance of large speckle noise due to translation and flutter of the paper surface. This report describes work at the INEEL using a Fabry-Perot interferometer approach to characterize and overcome these problems. © 2000 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]