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Damage Monitoring of Metal Materials by

Laser Speckle Assistedby Image
Processing Technique'
(Basic
Experiment)

Akira Kato", Yu-ZhongDai"'and Fu-Pen Chiang"'

This paper presents a method to detectdamage of metals with no contact using

a laser speckle technique, This method isbased on observations of the change of the
laserspeckle patterndependingon the surface roughness and texture change of the

material caused by slip bands due to plasticdeformation, The laser speckle pattern
was analyzed automatically and quantitativelyusing an image processing system in
thisexperiment. A new parameter, ck, was derivedto statistically express the features
of the speckle pattern.Itwas foundthat thisparameter can express the features of the
speckle pattern accurately and has excellent reproducibility. Also,itallows an accu-
rate measurement of plastic strain. The experiment was carried out for cases of both
static tensileand fatigue loading using aluminum alloy as the material,

Kev Wor(is: Nondestructive Inspection,Laser SpeckleMethod, Image Processing,

Plastic Deformation, Fatigue

obtained in those experiments scatter slightly, and the

1. Introduction results are not sufficiently reliab!e. It is essential in
Both static plasticdeformationand fatiguedam- this kind of experiment to analyze the laserspeckle
age of metal materials are accompanied with plastic pattern quantitativelyand to finda parameter that
strain, producing slip bands on the material surface. can express the featuresof speckle patternchange
Therefore,the surface roughness and surface profile accurately, In this investigation, an image processing
change with the progressof plastic deformation or system was employed the laser speckle
to analyze
fatigue damage. The laser speckle pattern changes pattern automatically quantitatively. As the dis-
and

with the change of surface roughness and profile.If tribution of the lightintensity of the laser speckle
the relationship betweenthe laserspeckle pattern and variesdrastically, we considered a new statistical
the amount of plastic deformationor fatigue damage parameterto express the features of the laser speckle
is known in advance, we can estimate the damage of pattern. The reproducibility of this parameter was
metal materials based on the speckle pattern. examined and the accuracy of the measurement was

Measurement of plasticdeformationby the laser investigated.

or white-light speckle technique has been reported by In the earlier stage of fatigue,
slip bands generate
several researchers{:}"'"). Those papers investigated on the metal surface, microscopic shear strain is
the method plastic strain based on the
to estimate stored in the slip bands and the slip bands become
speckle pattern depending on the surface tex-
change dense.The surface texture changes and surface rough-
ture change inducedby slip bands,However, the data ness becomes markod with the progress of fatigue
damage{5),<6).If we use the laserspeckle technique,
there isa possibility of detecting the fatigue damage
.
2nd October,
1990
of metals inthe early stage of fatigue before initiation
Chubu University,
iil-tReceived
Japan
Kasugai,Aichi,
State Universityof New York at Stony Brook, Stony of cracks. In thisstudy, we observed the change of the

Brook, New York, U, S. A, speckle patern during fatiguecycles under operation

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of a testing machine and the possibilityof fatigue expressed by value from O to 255 in the
a numerical
monitoring by the laser speckle technique was inves- image memory. The digitalimage data were transfer-
tigated. red to the main memory of a minicomputer (VAX 111
730)and then stored in itsmagnetic tape. Softwareto
2. Experimental Procedure
analyze the speckle image was developed on the
2.1 Experimentalsystem mlnlcomputer.

The material used in this experiment is 6061 2.2 Data analysis

aluminum alloy. The initial roughness and directional Figure 2 shows examples of the gray level distri-
featureof the specimen surface has a large influence bution of the speckle patterns obtained from the
on the speckle pattern,Ifthe surface texture isdirec- image processing system fordifferent magnitudes of

tional, the speckle pattern is directional and not plasticstrain caused by nniform tension. These figures
axisymmetrical. AIso,ifthe initial surface roughness show thatthe speckle patternchanges clearly with the
islarge,speckle pattem change is small in the range magnitude of plastic strain, The peak gray levelat the
of small plasticstrain. Therefore, if it is required to center of the speckle image decreasesand the gray
detect a small change of speckle pattern, the specimen level distribution spreads out with the increaseof
surface should initially be smooth and nondirectional. plastic strain.

In thisexperiment, the specimens were polished finally Figure3 shows the relationship between the ratio
with aluminum dioxidepowder in random directions of vamtldrnax and plastic strain. Here, M.dn and nlnax
so that the surface texture became macroscopically are the minimum and maximum values, respectively,

isotropic and uniform. The initial surface roughness among second-order moments of inertia of the gray

was about O,1 Fm Ra forevery specimen, leveldistribution around the fourdifferent axes shown
Figure 1 shows the layout of the experimental in the chart of Fig. 3, If the ratio n(tttnvamax isclose to
systern. He-Ne laserwas illuminated on the specimen 1, itmeans that the second-order moments of inertia
surface and the laser speckle pattern was formed on around the four axes take almost the sarne value;

the ground glassplacedin frontof the specimen. The that is, the gray level distribution of the speckle
diameter of the laser beam was about 1mm. The pattern isround and axisymmetrical. From the figure,
image of the speckle pattern was inputintothe image thisratio issmaller than 1 when p]asticstrain issmall,
processing system (HamamatsuCIOOe)through a TV but itapproaches 1 with the increaseof plasticstrain.
camera and then AID converted, Resolutionof the This means that the gray leveldistribution is slightly
image memory was 256× 256and the gray scale of one directionalinitially, butitbecomes nondirectional and
pixel was 256. The brightness of the laser speckle was axisymmetrical around the centroid of the gray level
distribution when plastic deformationbecomes large.
Hence we considered the followingparameter to
express the spread of the gray leveldistribution
around the centroid of the distribution.
First,the image of the speckle pattern was
smoothed to reduce the noise, We used a moving
averaging method of 3 × 3 pixels for smoothing. Then
the centroid, O(xo,yo), of the gray leveldistribution
was obtained (Fig. 4(a)), and the average gray level,
g(r), of pixels on a circle c with the center O and the
radius of r was obtained <Fig.4(b)).
The average

gray levelg(r) isexpressed by the followingexpres-

sion,

Zg(x,y)
g(r)-C , (1)
nc
where g(x,y) isthe gray levelat a point (x,y) on

circle c of the speckle image. Then 2g(x,y) is the c

summation the gray levelof pixels on circle c and

of

nc isthe number of pixels on the same circle, Also,

r= (x-xo)2+(y-yo)2.
Censequently,the functiong(r) expresses the gray
leveldistributionin the radial directionaround the
Fig. 1 Configuration
of experimental system

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m mo

mo pt

mo m::

;
-: wo ioo-.p:

v tse
: lco

Loo IOb

se N

oso ioo iso ISO m 4oe 1se ooo sso oco too tSO 1co Jco su -o soo abo
IInitia]soo #ep=5.20%-oe

(a)200 (Ep=:O%) (d)2se

1- mo

1,k' m

}sc::
mo:t

reo-e; )o'o'tt

Lco LN

lco too

co
se

oes tco tso aco(b)tSO JOO "O mo soe sso o se ico lm 2oo 2sc sce sw too eo soo cao
lEp=1.55%4oo
r

(e) ep=6.60%
ma

ym Fig.2 Speckle patternfor differentplasticstrains

i50::

}w-tt

isc

lco

co

o fio too tsc 2co(c}NO coO 1sc -oo m boo eeo

t
g(x,y)
ep= 3.16%

(a) Gray leveldistribution

o,L

S O･6X

O.4
y

O.2

e
O123456 7
x
PlastiestrsinS %
(b) Imageplane
Fig. 3 Relationshipbetween Mminuaax and plastic
strain Fig.4 Procedurefor obtaining g(r)

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centroid O (Fig,5( a )), Nr

2g(r)r2
Then g(r) was normalized to reduce the error
inducedby the difference of speckle brightness, We Zg'(r)
r;O

used the followinglinearmapping functionfor nor- where M isthelimitof r, which was taken as 110 in
malization: this analysis.
g,(.)=255
r- tn.
(2) Next, we examined the influenceof brightness of
gnal- gVndn
the laserspeckle on the ch parameter, Figure7shows
This functionmakes the maximum gray levelin g(r), the relationship between ck and gmni when thespeckle
to be 255 and
ginai, the minimum value, thdn,to be O,
pattern was obtained at the same point of a specimen
The normalized gray leveldistributionis shown in with different brightness of the laserspeckle, The
Fig.5(b). Figure 6 shows the difference in the nor-
speckle brightness was changed by two methods. One
malized gray level distributiondependingon the plas-
is that the aperture of the lensof the TV camera was
tic strain, The gray leveldistribution, g'(r),is found changed under a constant intensity of the laser light
to spread with the increaseof plasticstrain. Hence,
and the other is thatthe intensity of the laserlight
we considered the followingparameter that can
was changed with an ND filterunder a constant
express the feature of the gray level distribution:
aperture of the lens. This figureshows that the ch
parameter isalmost constant inthe wide range of thnax
m (from20 to 160)and takes almost the sarne value in
10T
noV.
both cases, This means that the ci parameter is not
NO by the brightness
significantly influenced of the laser
tso:

1sc:- speckle, and both the change of aperture and the

of light
intensityhave alrnost the same effect
t-.n
change
mo;
too on the ch parameter.
ee
" 3. Measurement of Plastic Strain
e
ec
v Firstwe thismethod to the measurement
applied
eacwco SO Lco tac1toico
r(a) of Here the aluminum
plastic strain. specimens were

g(r) loaded by uniaxial tension. Plasticstrain was mea-

sured by the moire method. Figure8 shows the rela-
mo
E-O: tionship between the surface roughness (Ra)and the
of plasticstrain. Itisfoundthat the surface
th-wsc magnitude
Ne
mo: roughness increases with the increase of plasticstrain,
lco:-
t-o.m
Figure 9 shows the relationship betweenthe ch param-
tN; eter of the laser speckle pattern and the magnitude of
Loo
se plasticstrain ep. The experiment was conducted
co

ep
under four differenttesting conditions of speckle
to brightness. The first one was thatthe aperture of the
o
orc -o eo eo tco tmo le tsc TV camera was constant butthe light intensityof the
r
laser lightwas adjusted with an ND filter so that the
(b) g'(r)(Normalized)

Fig,5 Normalization
of g(r)
2000

i-:
1800
Ck
utLV-

-w l600
lst;
ten:n
t-/'e 1400
tie;
Lco'
co 1200
co
to
N 1OOOo
o
100 200
o ee va sc eo too tN l" tse
r
gmar

Fig.6 Differencein gray leveldistribution

g'(r) Fig.7 Relationship
betweenc. and g"ax

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- (5)
average gray level of the speckle image became Ep=c(cA)`.

approximately constant. The others were that the Here, log(c)=-a/b and d=1/b. The values of c and

aperture of the lensof the TV carnera was fixedat d were obtained by the leastsquares method ; c=3.99
three different
values, i,e., "32,"16 and rr8, under a × 10'` and d==O.74. Therefore, we can estimate the
constant light
intensity, It isfound that the values of magnitude of plasticstrain from the value of the ch

ch obtained under differentconditions of speckle parameter using this equation, It was found thatthis
brightness coincide very well and the ck parameter is parameter ch is not infiuenced signhicantly by the
not influenced by speckle brightnessin all cases of brightness of the laserspeckle and thatithas a very

plastic strain, The parameter ch increases with Ep and good reproducibility. It can be concluded that this
has a tendency similar to the surface roughness shown parameter will allow us to make an accurate measure-

in Fig, 8, ment of plasticstrain.

Figure 10 shows the relationship between ch and
4. Fatigue Test
ep obtained from two specimens under the same
experimental condition. In the figure, the data of In the fatigue test,we used the notched specimens
specimen A are the averages of values shown in Fig. shown in Fig.11.The laserlightwas illuminated on
9. The values of ch obtained from the two different the edge at the notch root of the specimen, as shown

specimens coincide very well, This shows that the ch in the figure. The testing machine used was a servo-
parameter has a very good reproducibility and that hydraulicfatiguetestingmachine (Instron) .The spec-
there is a fixed relationship between ch and plastic imens were subjected to uniaxial tensilefatigueload,
strain Ep. Figure 10 shows that there isa linearrela- The specimen was set in the testing machine and the
tionshipbetweenlog(ck) and log(Ep), Thisrelation can laser light was illuminated on the specimen surface,
be expressed by the following equation : The experimental layoutisalmost the same as in Fig,
log(ck)=a+blog(Ep). (4) 1 except that we used a high-speedcamera (SP2000,
Alternatively, itcan be expressed by Kodak) to obtain the speckle image and a personal
computer (IBM PS!2) to analyze the image data,The
image of the speckle pattern was taken using the high-
O.6 speed carnera during fatigue loading without stopping

the testing machine or unloading the specimen. This

S O,5eq" high-speedcamera can obtain images up to 2000
O,4zali frames!sec.
This equipment performs AID conversion

e.3y98

O.28:en
1Ooo
O.1
Ck

O 1234567
PSasticstrain ep %
1OO
Fig. 8 Relationchipbetween surface roughness and ep

2000 10
o.eol o.ol o.1
Plasticstrain
%
15oo

ct Fig. 10 Relationshipof c,-Ep for two specimens

1000

500

O 2 4 6 8 10 12
Plasticstrain% %

Fig. 9 Relationship
betweenc- and Ep Fig. 11 Test specimen for fatiguetest

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of the image signal and stores the digital

image in its
However, as shown in Fig, 13, the ck value changes
memory the magnetic tape. The resolu-
as well as on appreciably with the increase of fatiguecycle when
tion of this image memory is 238× 192 and the gray stress amplitude israther Iargeand itmay be conclud-
scale is64.As the frequencyof the cyclic loadingwas ed that damage detection ispossiblein the early stage
set at 6 Hz, which was not so high, we used the high- of fatigue by observing the change of the ck parame-
speed camera with the speed of 200 frameslsec, Dur- ter.
ing the fatiguetest, an image of the laser speckle
5. Conclusions
pattern was taken at a certain interval of fatigue
cycles. The image data of the speckle pattern were The laserspeckle technique was applied to the
transferred to the personal computer, the same
and measurement of plastic strain and the detectionof
analysis as that in the static tensile test was made, fatiguedarnage,assisted by an image processing sys-
We observed the speckle pattern change the
with tem in this study. The image processingsystem was
progress of fatiguedamage under several kinds of found to be very effective in analyzing the speckle
stress arnplitude. We used specimens with a notch pattern quantitatively.The ch parameter which we

radius of 6.4mm, As the notch radius is rather large, derivedin this study expresses the featuresof the
the stress concentration factor dueto the notch can be laser speckle pattern numerically and hasa very good
considered to be 1.The conditions of fatiguestress at reproducibility. The relation between ch and plastic
the notch root were as follows:the mean stress was strain isexpressed by a simple equation in the range

fixed to am=217MPa and the stress amplitude was of plastic strain (Ep<le%) where we made experi-
changed oa=155, 167, 186, 205 and 217MPa. Figure
as ments. Then, plastic strain can be estimated easily
12 the relationship between stress arnplitude
shows using this equation. It isconcluded that the magnitude
and fatigue life,IVf.Figure 13 shows the relationship of plastic strain can be estimated accurately by the
betweenthe ck pararneter of the laserspeckle pattern laserspeckle technique.
and AVNf. Here,N isthe number of stress cycles. Itis The patterndid not change so dramati-
speckle
normalized M, forthe
by fatiguelife, corresponding cally with fatigueloading,and the change of the cA
stress amplitude shown in Fig,12,The value of ch is parameterwas very small, Also, the fluctuationof the
very small compared to that in the case of static ch parameter was not as distinctive
as that of static

plastic deforrnation,
especially when aa issmall, Also, tensile test.Therefore,detectionof fatigue damage
the change of the ch value is very small when oa is will not be as accurate. However, the ck parameter
smaller than rs6MPa, However, the ck value in- changed appreciably when the stress amplitude was

creases monotonously with IVIM, The ck value be- rather large. It be concluded
can that there is a
comes largewith the increase of oh, and the change of possibility of detectingfatigue damage by this
the ch parameter IVIACf becomes perceptible.Itis
with method,

found that the ck value changes markedly duringthe

earlier cycles of fatigue
and issaturated forlargerN.
300
As the plasticstrain induced by fatigue loading is
very small compared to that of the static tensiletest,
the change of the speckle pattern is small and the ck Ck

value does not change so markedly in the fatiguetest.

200
3008Ebh

Y. 200='a:zaees1OO1 100

10 o
O,Ol O,1 1
Fatiguelife IV7 xlO` NtA}

Fig. 12 Relationshipbetween stress amplitude and Fig. 13 Relationshipbetween ch and IVINfunder different
fatigue
life stress amplitudes

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Acknowledgments
Financialsupport forthe work reported hasbeen
provided in part by U,S, Army Research Office,
EngineeringScienceDivision,through contract No.
DAA0388K033. The major part of the work was done
when A. Kato was a visiting scholar at SUNY at
Stony Brook,
References
{1) MiyagawaM,andAzushimaA.,"Measurementof
PlasticDeformation by Means of a Laser Beam",
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p,1,
(2) Azushima A,, Miyagawa M., Ohira T. and Kishi
T., "Measurement of the PlasticZone around a
Fatigue Crack of a Stainless Steel Structure
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(3 ) Lee C.,Chao Y. J.,PetersW. H, and SuttonM. A.,
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{4 ) Lee C.,Chao Y. J,,Sutton M. A., PetersW. H. and
Ranson W. F., of PlasticStrains
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(5) MughrabiH.,Wang R,,DiffertK, and Essmann
U., Crack Initiationby CyclicSlip
"Fatigue
Irreversibilities
in High-Cycle Fatigue", ASTM
STP811 (1983), p.5.
(6) Lin T.H., Lin S,R, and Wu X.Q. "Microme-
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Proc XVII InternationalCongress on Applied
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