An endoscopic shearography system with radial sensitivity for inner inspection of adhesion faults in composite material pipes

This work presents the development of a special shearography system with radial sensitivity and explores its applicability for detecting adhesion flaws on internal surfaces of joints of composite material pipes. The system uses two conical mirrors to achieve radial sensitivity. A primary 45° conical mirror is responsible for promoting the inspection of the internal surface all way around 360°. A special Michelson-like interferometer is formed replacing one of the plane mirrors by a conical mirror. The image reflected by this conical mirror is shifted away from the image center in a radial way and a radial shear is produced on the images. The concept was developed and tested. Two tubular steel specimens internally coated with composite materials and having known artificial defects were analyzed to test the ability of the system to detect the flaws. The system presented very good results on all inspected specimens. The experimental results obtained in this work are promising and open a new front for inspections of inner surfaces of composite pipes with shearography.