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2nd International Conference on Structural Integrity, ICSI 2017, 4-7 September 2017, Funchal,
2nd International Conference on Structural Integrity,
Madeira, ICSI 2017, 4-7 September 2017, Funchal,
Portugal
Madeira, Portugal
Influence of shearing amount and vibration amplitude on noise in
Influence
XV Portugueseof shearing
Conference amountPCF
on Fracture, and vibration
2016, amplitude
10-12 February ondenoise
2016, Pao in
Arcos, Portugal
shearography
shearography
Thermo-mechanical modeling of a high pressure turbine blade of an
H. Lopesa,a,*, J. V. Arajo dos Santosbb, P. Moreno-Garcacc, J. Monteirodd
airplane
H. Lopes *, J. V. Arajo gas turbine
dos Santos engine , J. Monteiro
, P. Moreno-Garca
DEM-ISEP, Instituto Politcnico do Porto, Portugal
a

IDMEC,aDEM-ISEP,
b Instituto
Instituto Superior Politcnico
Tcnico, do Porto,
Universidade dePortugal
Lisboa, Portugal
a Tcnico, Universidade
b c
c b
IDMEC,
Departamento de Ingeniera P. Brando , V. Infante , A.M. Deus *
Instituto
Mecnica Superior
y Diseo Industrial, dede
Escuela Superior Lisboa, Portugal
Ingeniera, Universidad de Cdiz, Spain
c
Departamento de Ingeniera
d Mecnica
Laboratrio y Diseo
de ptica Industrial,Experimental,
e Mecnica Escuela Superior de Ingeniera,
INEGI, Universidad de Cdiz, Spain
Porto, Portugal
a
Department of MechanicaldLaboratrio
Engineering,deInstituto
ptica eSuperior
Mecnica Experimental,
Tcnico, INEGI,
Universidade dePorto, Portugal
Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1, 1049-001 Lisboa,
Portugal
b
IDMEC, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Tcnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1, 1049-001 Lisboa,
Abstract
Abstract Portugal
c
CeFEMA, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Tcnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1, 1049-001 Lisboa,
A method for the evaluation of noise in measurements with shearography Portugal is reported in this paper. This method is able to quantify
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found out that the best measurements are obtained with the largest values of the shearing amount and vibration
especially the high pressure turbine (HPT) blades. Such conditions cause these parts to undergo different types of time-dependent amplitude.
degradation,
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using the finite element method (FEM) was developed, in order to be able to predict
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behaviour of HPT of the
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(FDR) for a specific aircraft, provided by a commercial aviation
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Keywords:
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rectangular block shape, in order to better establish the model, and then with the real 3D mesh obtained from the blade scrap. The
1. overall expected behaviour in terms of displacement was observed, in particular at the trailing edge of the blade. Therefore such a
Introduction
1. model
Introduction
can be useful in the goal of predicting turbine blade life, given a set of FDR data.
Speckle interferometry techniques are optical methods dedicated to the experimental measurement of the
Speckle
2016 Theinterferometry
Authors. Published by Elsevier
techniques areB.V.
optical methods dedicated to theareexperimental
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in opaque
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Keywords: High Pressure Turbine Blade; Creep; Finite Element Method; 3D Model; Simulation.
Jueptner (2005)). Electronic speckle pattern interferometry and digital shearography are the most common speckle

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +0-351-22-834-0500 ; fax: +0-351-22-832-1159.

* E-mail
Corresponding
address:author. Tel.: +0-351-22-834-0500 ; fax: +0-351-22-832-1159.
hml@isep.ipp.pt
E-mail address: hml@isep.ipp.pt
2452-3216 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review underThe
2452-3216 2017 responsibility of theby
Authors. Published Scientific Committee of ICSI 2017.
Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review underauthor.
* Corresponding responsibility
Tel.: +351of218419991.
the Scientific Committee of ICSI 2017.
E-mail address: amd@tecnico.ulisboa.pt

2452-3216 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of PCF 2016.
2452-3216 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of ICSI 2017
10.1016/j.prostr.2017.07.043
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2 H. Lopes et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2017) 000000

interferometry techniques used today. Static or dynamic measurements of the surface displacement and their spatial
derivatives up to the second order can be obtained (Schnars and Jueptner (2005), Steinchen and Yang (2003), Kreis
(2005)). Since optical techniques allow full-field, real time, non-contact and high resolution measurements, they have
become popular within the experimentalists community. In the last decades, these techniques have received a great
impulse with the introduction of the temporal and spatial phase modulation techniques, thus increasing the resolution
of the measurements. However, these speckle interferometry techniques suffer from several inconvenient effects,
which may lead to high levels of noise and errors in the experimental measurements.
Noise is intrinsic to any experimental measurement and mainly due to its random nature it is difficult to characterize
its source and control it. On the other hand, errors are usually systematic and may be controlled and quantified, as
they can be related to a single measurement parameter, such as, for instance, the numerical aperture, the sensitivity
vector, the phase step, and the deformation and loading ranges. The time and space low coherency of the light source,
the non-uniform illumination of the object, the superposition of high frequency speckle noise, the presence of dust
particles in the optical path, the reflectivity variation of the object surface, the electronic recording system and the
external perturbations are common examples of noise sources in speckle interferometry (Schnars and Jueptner (2005),
Steinchen and Yang (2003), Kreis (2005)). Typical examples of errors sources in speckle interferometry are
misalignment of the optical setup and miscalibration of the phase step (Creath and Schmit (1996), Steinchen et al.
(1998), Picart et al. (2001), Abdullah and Petzing (2005), Kreis (2005)). In this work, we are only interested in the
analysis and evaluation of the noise, being the errors considered in other studies.
A particular application of speckle interferometry is structural damage identification using dynamic responses and
modal parameters (Lopes et al. (2014), Mininni et al. (2016), Arajo dos Santos and Lopes (2017)). Shearography
possesses several advantages in relation to others experimental modal analysis techniques, since it allows the direct
measurement of modal rotation fields with high spatial resolution. Nevertheless, since most damage identification
methods require the post-processing of these modal rotation fields, namely the application of finite differences to
obtain the modal curvatures (Pandey et al. (1991)), the control and quantification of noise is of paramount importance
to obtain reliable results.
The evaluation of noise in measurements with shearography is one of the most important steps in finding its
accuracy. However, a detailed analysis of noise in shearography has not been reported yet, mainly because for its
evaluation it is necessary to know the continuous full-fields, which are obtained from the discontinuous measured
phase maps. Thus, the procedure to quantify the noise is not straightforward, since it is necessary to resolve
simultaneously the discontinuities and the ambiguities in the phase maps. A recent method has been proposed to
overcome these problems and is applied here (Lopes et al. (2017)). The present paper reports the analysis of noise on
experimental measurements produced by several setup parameters. With this purpose in mind, the first four modal
rotation fields of a free-free beam were measured using a digital shearography technique, in which we varied the
shearing amount and the vibration amplitude.

2. Method for the evaluation of noise

A signal coming from an experimental measurement, i.e. an experimental signal, is composed by a true signal and
by a noise signal. The true signal presents a smooth variation, while the noise signal presents random fluctuations. For
the accuracy assessment of a given measure quantity it is necessary to evaluate the contribution of noise. The noise
can be estimated by computing its root mean square (RMS) or its signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). However, this evaluation
requires the knowledge of the true signal in a given measurement in order to identify the random fluctuations in the
signal associated with the noise. The true signal is usually obtained by post-processing the experimental signal, such
as by applying low-pass filters. Therefore, the noise signal can be estimated by subtracting the true signal to the
experimental signal.
Speckle interferometry involves the measurement of phase maps, which are discontinuous signals. The
corresponding continuous true signal must be obtained by filtering and unwrapping these phase maps (Steinchen and
Yang (2003), Kreis (2005), Ghiglia and Pritt (1998)). However, this is not a straightforward procedure when we want
to obtain the continuous experimental signal, since we must deal simultaneously with phase discontinuities and phase
ambiguities due to the noise. It has been shown that it is possible to obtain the continuous experimental signal starting
from the measured phase map (Lopes et al. (2017)). The method proposed by Lopes et al. (2017) can resolve the phase
 H. Lopes et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 5 (2017) 12051212 1207
H. Lopes et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2017) 000000 3

discontinuities and the phase ambiguities with variations between and , thus allowing the evaluation of noise. A
flowchart describing the main steps of this method is shown in Figure 1. The measured unfiltered phase map is first
filtered with low-pass filters (Seara et al. (1998) and Aebischer et al. (1999)). The phase discontinuities and the phase
transitions in the filtered phase map are identified by defining a level function consisting of multiples of 2. This
identification does not include the information of phase jumps due to the noise. This level function is part of the
process which is called continuation, phase unwrapping or demodulation (Kreis (2005)), thus allowing to obtain
continuous signals. In this work, the level function is used to unwrap the filtered and unfiltered phase maps.
Afterwards, these two continuous phase maps are compared and the phase differences are corrected by adding or
subtracting 2 to the continuous unfiltered phase map. By subtracting the corrected continuous unfiltered phase map
to the continuous filtered phase map one obtains the noise. This noise represents phase fluctuations, i.e. they
characterize the noise in the measured unfiltered phase map. In the case of measurements with shearography, a relation
between the noise in the phase and the noise in the rotation can be established, based on the following equation
(Steinchen and Yang (2003)):

w( x, y )
( x, y ) (1)
x 4 x

where (x, y) and w( x, y ) / x are the mathematical representations of the measured phase map and the measured
rotation field, respectively, being x the shearing amount and the wavelength of the light source. The noise in the
rotation field can be further evaluated by computing the root mean squares (RMS) and the signal-to-noise ratios (SNR).

Measured unfiltered
phase map

Continuous unfiltered Continuous

phase map filtered phase map

Corrected continuous
unfiltered phase map

Noise

Fig. 1. Flowchart describing the method for the evaluation of noise.

3. Experimental setup

Figure 2 shows the experimental setup used for the measurement of the first four modal rotation fields of an
aluminum beam in free-free condition and dimensions 400 mm x 40 mm x 3 mm. This condition was accomplished
by suspending the beam at its ends by two rubber bands. The measurements are made using a digital shearography
system and by applying the temporal phase modulation. The in-house digital shearography system is based on a
Michelson optical interferometer, which creates the interference pattern between two wave fronts laterally sheared,
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being the shearing amount adjusted by controlling the angle of one of the mirrors in the interferometer. The shearing
amount considered in the experimental measurement is always along the longitudinal direction of the beam. The
temporal phase modulation was implemented by changing the length of one of the arms of the Michelson
interferometer through the translation of a mirror. The translation of the mirror is achieved by a piezoelectric actuator.
A DALSA-Falcon 4M60 digital CMOS camera and a Leica 50 mm lens are used to record the intensity pattern of the
laser light reflected by the surface. A Coherent model Verdi continuous wave laser with a wavelength of 532 nm and
maximum output power of 2 W is used. The system allows the recording of a full-field with up to 4 million points
(23521728). The recorded intensity pattern is integrated by the sensor of the camera. The time integration is normally
much higher than the vibration period. This problem is solved by recording the intensity pattern at the same instant.
To achieve this, the laser light is pulsed using an InterAction Corp. ADM-70 acousto-optic modulator, which is
synchronized with the vibration of the beam.
The excitation of the beam at their natural frequencies is made without contact using a loudspeaker mounted near
and on the opposite side of the measurement surface. For this purpose, the beam natural frequencies in free-free
condition were identified from previously measured frequency response functions. The phase maps corresponding to
the modal rotations are obtained by correlating the interference phase measured without motion of the beam and at its
maximum vibration amplitude. Since there is a relationship between the amplitude of the acoustic excitation and the
vibration amplitude of the beam, the latter is defined by adjusting the pressure generated by the loudspeaker using an
audio amplifier. The devices used in the measurements are on top of a Newport optical table with pneumatic
suspension to minimize the influence of external mechanical perturbations.
In order to investigate the influence of the shearing amount and the vibration amplitude on noise in the modal
rotations, two sets of measurements were carried out. The first set involves the determination of modal rotations with
the same vibration amplitude, but considering three different shearing amounts: 2, 5, and 10 mm. In the second set,
the determination of modal rotations is made with four progressive levels of vibration amplitudes with a fixed shearing
amount of 10 mm.

Fig. 2. Experimental setup for the measurement of modal rotation fields of an aluminum beam.

4. Results and discussion

The measured unfiltered phase maps corresponding to the first four modal rotation fields are presented in Fig. 3.
They were obtained using a time phase modulation technique of four recorded intensity patterns with a constant phase
shift of /2. The phase maps are represented in a grayscale for an easier interpretation, corresponding each gray level
to points of equal phase value. Phase discontinuities are observed along the beam, which are characterized by abrupt
 H. Lopes et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 5 (2017) 12051212 1209
H. Lopes et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2017) 000000 5

transitions from black to white and from white to black. However, this cannot always be clearly seen due to the loss
of contrast of fringes, which is due to the presence of high levels of noise. Therefore, by comparing the contrast of
fringes between phase maps it is possible to identify the phase map with higher levels of noise. This comparison,
however, does not allow the quantification of these levels. For instance, from the comparative visual analysis of the
phase maps presented in Fig. 3, it may be possible to conclude that the first and second images present higher levels
of noise than the other two images. Therefore, one needs to find better ways to characterize the levels of noise. In the
present work, the levels of noise are evaluated by computing its RMS and the SNR. The former is a measure of
absolute accuracy of a signal, whereas the latter is usually a quantity relating variables with different magnitudes, thus
measuring the relative accuracy.

Fig. 3. Phase maps corresponding to the first four modal rotation fields.

4.1. Shearing amount

A first set of measurements was carried out by fixing the vibration amplitude and setting the shearing amount to 2
mm, 5 mm, and 10 mm. Since the determination of each one of the four modal rotation fields was performed twice,
we have a total of 24 measurements. In order to simplify and improve the consistency of the analysis, the RMS of
noise and the SNR of each pair of modal rotation fields were averaged.
Figure 4 shows the RMS of noise in the first four modal rotation fields as a function of the shearing amounts. It is
clearly observed that there is a non-linear decrease of the RMS with the shearing amount. Although only three different
shearing amounts have been considered, one can see that the rate of the decreasing of the RMS diminishes with the
1210 H. Lopes et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 5 (2017) 12051212
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order of the modal rotation field. We also observe that the RMS is always higher in the first modal rotation. The lowest
RMS for any the modal rotation field is obtained with the shearing amount of 10 mm.

Fig. 4. RMS of noise in the first four modal rotation fields as a function of the shearing amount.

The SNR of the first four modal rotation fields as function of the shearing amounts are shown in Fig. 5. This figure
reveals an almost linear increase of the SNR with the shearing amount, being this linearity more clear in the first and
fourth modal rotations. We can also observe that the SNR is much higher in the first modal rotation field than in the
others, thus indicating a better relative accuracy in the measurement of the first modal rotation.

Fig. 5. SNR of the first four modal rotation fields as a function of the shearing amount.

4.2. Vibration amplitude

The second set of measurements consists in a total of 48 measurements, divided in 16 groups of three
determinations of each modal rotation field. These groups result from the combination of the first four modal rotations
with four different vibration amplitudes. The different vibration amplitudes in the rotations are achieved by
progressively increasing the amplitude of the signal applied to the loudspeaker. The RMS of noise and the SNR
 H. Lopes et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 5 (2017) 12051212 1211
H. Lopes et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2017) 000000 7

presented in the following figures are obtained by, respectively, computing the average of RMS and SNR of the three
measurements in each group.
Figure 6 shows the RMS of noise in the first four modal rotation fields as a function of the maximum vibration
amplitude of the rotations. It is possible to observe a non-linear increase of the RMS of noise with the maximum
amplitude of the rotations. If one considers the same maximum vibration amplitude of the rotations, we observe that
the RMS of noise are higher for the first modal rotation field. On the other hand, the third modal rotation field presents
the lowest RMS for values of the maximum vibration amplitude of the rotation greater than or equal 50.

Fig. 6. RMS of noise in the first four modal rotation fields as a function of the maximum vibration amplitude of the rotations.

The SNR of the first four modal rotations as a function of the maximum vibration amplitude of the rotations is
presented in Figure 7. The plots in this figure show an almost linear relation for large values of the maximum vibration
amplitude of the rotations. On the other hand, for small values one can observe a non-linear behavior. The best SNR,
indicating a better relative accuracy, is obtained in the first modal rotation field.

Fig. 7. SNR of the first four modal rotation fields as a function of the maximum vibration amplitude of the rotations.
1212 H. Lopes et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 5 (2017) 12051212
8 H. Lopes et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2017) 000000

5. Conclusions

A method for the evaluation of noise was successfully applied to the determination of modal rotations of a beam.
The first four modal rotation fields were experimentally obtained with an in-house digital shearography system. Two
sets of measurements were carried out to investigate the influence of the shearing amount and the vibration amplitude
of rotations on the noise. The results show that the best measurements are obtained for the first modal rotation field
with the largest values of the shearing amount and maximum vibration amplitude. The present study gives important
and useful information about the improvement of measurements of modal rotations, allowing us to define a set of
optimal parameters. Further studies are underway with the objective of investigating the influence on noise of other
parameters, such as methods to evaluate the phase and the numerical aperture of the imaging system.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by FCT, through IDMEC, under LAETA, Project UID/EMS/50022/2013 and LAETA
Interinstitutional Project Advanced materials for noise reduction: modeling, optimization and experimental
validation.

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