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Damage Metal Materialsby

Monitoring of
Laser Speckle Assisted by Image
Processing Techniques"
(Relationship
between Distributionof Laser
Speckle and Surface Properties)
AkiraKATO", MitsuoKAWAMURA*** and Ichiro NAKAYA'*"

In this study, we investigated a noncontact method ef measuring plastic strain of

metals using laser speckle. This method isbased on observation of the change in laser
speckle pattern with surface profile change due to plastic deformation.Analysisof the
laser speckle pattern isperformed on a cornputer-based image processing system. The
relationships between speckle pattern and surface roughness and frequency character-
istics
of the surface profilewere investigated.
Surfaceroughness profiIe and surface
were observed for steel specimens polished
paper plasticallydeformed.
with emery or

The surface profilediagram was analyzed by means of the fastFouriertransform with

a cornputer and distribution of the spatial frequencies was ebtained. The results
showed that distribution of light intensity of the speckle is related to frequency
distribution of the surface profile, but itisnot always related to surface roughness. It
was also clarified that the laser speckle pattern is closely related to the magnitude of

plastic strain.

KeyiVbrds: Non-Destructive Laser Speckle, PlasticDeformation,

SurfaceProfile,F ourier Transform
Image Processing,Inspection,

distributionof the laser speckre for steel specimens

1. Introduction
which were polished by emery paper or plastically
One of the present authors ancl his co-workers deformed. Surface roughness was rneasured and

previously reported on damage detectionof metal surface profile diagrams were analyzed with FFT
materials using laser speckle(i). In the previous work, (fastFourier transform). The relationship between
experiments were performed using aluminum frequenciesof the
alloy statistical distribution
of spatial
plastically deforrned by uniaxial tension. From the surface profileand light intensity distribution
of the
experirnental results, it was clarified that intensity laserspeckle was investigated.
distribution of the laserspeckle changes with the As distributions of light intensity of the laser
amount of plasticstrain and that plasticstrain can be profile dia-
speckle and frequencies of the surface

assessed by observing the change of the speckle pat- to characterize

grams change sharply, it isnot easy
tern. the distributions accurately. We calculated the
It is known that the speckle pattern isgenerally autocorrelation functions to smooth the distributions
related to spatial frequencies of the specimen and clarify the difference of distributions under
surface(2)-{'). In this study, we investigated the rela- differentexperimental conditions. We also considered
tionship between surface characteristics and intensity a new parameter to express the characteristics of the
distributions.
'
Received 14th February, 1994. Japaneseoriginal:
Trans. Jpn. Soc. Mech. Eng., VoL59, No.561, A 2. ExperimentalPrecedure
(1993), p. 1401-1407 <Received
19th October, 1992)
The material used in this experiment is a struc-
i*
Department of Mechanical Engineering,Chubu Uni-
versity, Matsumoto-cho, Kasugai, Aichi 487,Japan ; JIS SS 330. The specimen
tural steel used isa strip
"'
Chubu University,Graduate School with thickness of 3.2mm and width of 15 mm. Surface
""
Chubu University(atpresent, Mitsubishi
Electric roughness and laser speckle were observed for the
Engineering Co.) specimens after they were polished with emery paper

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or plasticallydeformed by uniaxiar tension. Surface system is composed of a personal computer with

roughness was measured using a surface roughness peripherals (CRT hard disk, etc.) and an
monitor,

testing machine of contact type. It was measured in image processing board installedin the personal com-
two directions;parallel and perpendicu]ar to the puter. Capacity of the image memory is I024X512
specimen axis, for plastically deformed specimens. pixels and each pixel has 256 gray levels. The image
Surface pr()filediagrams obtained by the surface processing board has a 32-bit CPU (Transputer,
roughness testing machine were input to a computer Inmos Co,) and 4 Mbyte main memory. Programs for
using an image processing system and frequency the image processing are developed on this CPU and
anatysis was performed with FFT. can be executed at high speed. The personal com-

The experimental setup forthis study isshown in puter is used as a host computer only for input and
Fig.l. Figure 1(a) shows the optical system for output of the computed data. We can perform quanti-
observation of the laser speckle, He-Ne laser light tative analyses of speckle patterns and surface

(eutputpower is 5 mW and beam diameter is about 1 profilesby the cornputer image processing.
mm) illuminates the specimen surface and a laser
3. Speckle Pattern Produced by
speckle pattern due to the reflected light from the
a Diffraction Grating
specimen surface isformed on the ground glass placed
in front of the specimen as a screen. Coordinate Figure 2(a) shows the speckle pattern obtained
systems are denoted by <x,y> on the specimen surface when the laser illuminated a diffractiongrating with a
and (za,v) on the screen. An image of the speckle linedensityof about 200 lines/mm. There are two
pattern is obtained by a CCD camera and inputinto smarl lightspots on both sides of a central brightspot.
the image processing system shown in Fig.1(b) as Gray leveldistribution of this image in the u-direc-

two-dimensional image data. The image processing tion (horizontal direction in Fig.1(a)) is shown in
Fig.2(b). The abscissa is distance on the screen.
Specimen x From thisfigure, the average dfstanceof the two spots
y He-Nelaser
from the center is 66.0mm,
v Figure 3(a) shows a surface profile diagram of
P.B,S.
u the diffraction grating. The Fourier spectrum of the
',;, Groundgiass
i'i surface diagram after FFT is shown in Fig.3(b ).As
the position at the maximum power P of thisspectrum
t.tl

is jlt=206.3 (lfmm), actual linedensityof the grating

TV camera
is estimated as 206.3 lineslmm. The relationship
between coordinate za on the screen and spatial

bj
% lmageprocesslng
system
%
(a) Opticalsystem

CRT
monitor

{a) Specklegram
Hard =a
TV camera 2sotc
disk
2oour>s

Host computer Image processingboard lsehEo

(NEC,PC9801) (TBP06,ADSCo.)
Imagememory/1.SMbyte 1oo
{1on4XS12 × 8bitX3pl)
CPU , nm se
(Transputer,InmosCe,)
Localmemory / 4Mbyte o .80.60 .40 -20 O 20 co 60 so
CempiSer /ANSI C
(lnmosCo,) " mm

<b) Image processing system (b) Gray levelclistribution

Fig, 1 Configurationof experitnental system Fig. 2 Specklegram by diffractiongrating

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O,6

O.4Et

O,2N
o vvvim
-e.2
-O.4
-O.6
oO.025 o.os e.ons o,1 o.12s
x mrn

(a) Prefilediagram (a)#se

r'-IIf
-]
"Eggoto''EL
i
l
1
tt." i

o soo looo lsoe fi vmm

2 1 O.67 A. -rn

(b) Fourier spectrum

Fig. 3 Surface profile of the diffractiongrating (b)# 100

frequencyof the surface, j{t is ,

ft=AZSii=I7･ (1)
Here, A isthe wavelength of the He-Ne laser,which is
632.8nm. L is the distancebetween the specimen
surface and the screen and is 500mm in this experi-
ment. The calculated value of the right-hand side of
Eq. (1 > using the distance(u=66.0mm)between the
small spot and the center in Fig.2(b) is 2e6.8. This
value almost agrees with the peak point (][.=:206.3) in (c) #400
the Fourierspectrum shown in Fig.3(b) and it is Fig. 4 Surface polished with emery paper
found that Eq. (1) holds very well. This shows that
distribution of the speckle corresponds to the spatial
frequencies of the specimen surface.

4. Relationship between Intensity Distribution of

1.oo
the Laser Speckleand Surface Characteristics
4. 1 Surface polished with emery paper ES.O.7Seoc
The relationship between Iaser speckle and sur-

face characteristics was investigated

for specimens o.so
polished with emery paper of different
particle sizes.
The particle numbers of the emery paper were #50,
o,es
# 100,# 240 and # 400. Surface micrographs are shown

in Fig.4 after polishing with each emery paper.

Figure 5 shows the relationship between particle o.oo
o loo 2oo 3eD 4oo
number and center-line-average roughness (Ra).
Particlesize is largeand surface roughness is large . Particlenumber
for smaller particle number. Speckle patterns were Fig. 5 Relationshipbetween surface roughness and
observed for these surfaces. Gray leveldistributions particle nurnber

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- --1
tt.t....
...
.

w Ml
221501ooso
co EtNi[/I
.ge
&
g .1
II
(a) #50 ot "Xvv'""....M..yvi. ,L,A,,
t.,i' .,'x,,
!'/'L
irxftl
(a)#50

---- pt
/t
.N"igsi
:l4 /
1..,sJ''

o .LLLA.Jkdi"v--------
.-A.
.eo -60 -40 -20 O 20 40 oo 80 L....rv-
oO.05O.10O.IS O.20
" mrn

Fl ]
x mm
"."----r-- "'

1
2so2ooISO[oose ii
6rr
boT>R>,Eo
lN 42o.24-6

x,.-.-"xfV /-1,.D'Mv'v'LA..
i t..
..
- (b) # 100

-
o .80-60 -40 -20
-
O 20 40 60 Eva
" mrn
L--fi.-t
o O.05O.10o.rsO.20
2se = mm

ee
- --
2[x) 642o-2.4.6
T
N
>
1so EN
g,. (c) #400
so
"fipm (c) # 400
o -so-6o -4o -2o o 2o 4o 6o swmmspeckle
u

Fig. 6 Gray leveldistribution

of laser pattern o O,05 O,10 O.IS
x mm
O.20
(pelished surface)
--] Fig. 7 Surface profile diagram (polished
surface)
1

"vk

ce
,on (a) #50

:/ mo#1como

o
L!i(t!ti- 2ge sco27se1.331ooO
1
fi11mminmm sG
nyb)
o 1258 2so 375 500 limmAn
4 2.67 2n rmn

£
(b) #]OO
(a) Fourier spectrum

e8@ega
o 2SO4 mo27SO1.33 leao plirnm
1 krnm

ny

E･ (c) #400
mo .30 -20 -10 O IO 20 30 40
h mrn

o 2se SOO 7so 1{XX] PUrnm (b) Speckleintensitydistribut{on

4 2 1.33 l kmm

Fig. 8 Four'ier'
spectrum {polished
surface) Fig. 9 Comparison of autocorrelation function

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in the za-direction in the images of the laserspeckle properties were made for specimens plastically
are shown in Fig.6 for differentparticle sizes. The deforrnedby tension. In this experirnent,
uniaxial
figuresshow that broadening of the laserspeckle is initial
roughness and anisotropy of the specimen sur-

smaller after polishfng with emery paper of smaller face have a considerable influenceon the laser speckle
particle number. pattern. Ifthe surface property isdirectional,speckle
Figure 7 shows surface profile diagrams of the pattern is directional and is not axisymmetrical. If
polished specimens. Fourier spectra of these surface the initialsurface roughness is large,small change of
profilediagrams after FFT are shown inFig.8. Next the speckle pattern cannot be detectedinthe region of
the relationship between distribution of Fourier power small plastic strain. Therefore,ifthe detectionof a
and speckle distributionwas investigated. As these small change of speckle pattern is required, the speci-
distributions change sharply leadingto scatter of the men surface should be smooth and nondirectional

analyzed data, is
it necessary to smooth the distribu- initially. In this experiment, the specimens were

tions and clarify the characteristics of the distribu- finallypolished with aluminum dioxide powder in
tions. For thispurpese, we calculated the autocorrela- random directions so that the surface texture became
tion functions for Fourier power, P(lv),and gray level macroscopically isotropicand uniform. Initialsurface
distribution of the laser speckle, g(u), which are roughness was about O,1pm Ra for every specimen.
expressed by An experiment was performed using one specimen,
fo increasing
plastic deformationstepwise.
2 p(ft)p(ft
+ rp)
R(v)=fX=O f, , (2) The relationship between surface roughness Ra
2 p(k)2
fx=O
and plastic strain ep is shown in Fig.12. Surface
uo

Z g(or)g(u+h) 400
G(h) ==
U=-Uo
., . (3)
Z
u=-uo
g(u)2
Autocorrelation functionsof the Fourierspectrum of

the surface and gray Ieveldistribution of the laser 300

in Figs. 9(a)
9(b), respec-
speckle are

tively,fordifferent
compared

particle $izes. Both these distribu-

and
of
tions broaden more for larger particle number. As
2oo
parameters to express the width of these distributions,
we considered variances around v=O for the Fourier
spectrum and around h=O forgray level distribution
of the laser speckle. These parameters are expressed 100
by 8000 12000 16ooO 2oeeo
rpo

2v2R(rp) q2
a; ==
"=,O,
, (4)
ZR(ny) Fig.10 Relationship
betweenoZ and o: (polished
v=o
surface)
he
Z-,h,O
h2G(h)
(5)
h=
aZ= . 4oo
2 G(h)
h=-ho

The relationship between oZ and a; is shown in

Fig.10, which that width of the lightintensity
shows
300
distributionof the laser speckle, di,increases with the
frequencydistributionof the surface profile,a;. This of
means that width of lightintensity of the raserspeckle
changes with the statistical distribution of frequencies
200
in the surface profile.
Figure 11 shows the relationship between center-
Iine-averageroughness (Ra)and speckle distribution
oZ. The figureshows that width of the speckle distri- 100
bution decreaseswith the increase of surface rough- O.2 O.4 O.6 O.8 1,O 1.2

ness.
Ra pm
4.2 Surface
plastic deformation
after Fig. 11 Relationshipbetween aZ and surface roughness
Observationsof the ]aser speckle and surface Ra (polishedsurface)

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roughness is rather
high when ep=O, due to non- Ra increases with increase of Ep for larger ep.
uniform polishing. Change of Ra is small in the region Surface profile diagrams for different plastic
of small p]astic strain. However, it is c]ear that strains are shown in Fig.13. Fourierspectra after
FFT these diagramsare shown in Fig. 14.It isseen
of
O.7 from these figures that the Fourierspectrum broadens
with the increaseof plastic strain. It is considered
that this is because slipbands occur more densely with
O.6Es
increaseof prastic strain, and the higher frequency
component in the surface profile increases with the
o.s"ce
increaseof slipband density. The autocorrelation

O.4

O.3 "tsitoza

O.2 (a)Ep=O%
O S 10 IS 202S

& %Ra
Fig. ]2 Relationship between ancl Ep (plastically
o so20 lco10 1se6,67 200fi 11mm
deformed surface)
5k pm

2[------

qts)opt
Et" 1

(b)ep=3.6%
vo
"'---- tt''t/t (a)Ep=O%

.]
o se20 Iooto 1so6.67 2(X)fiIIrnm
-2-.--.t,-- 5At um
o O,2Se.sO.751,Ox
mm1.25

2
nys)oa
EtN 1
(c)sp
o .A/''x t.t..v"-w
=r-
7.3%
(b)ep==3.6%
-1
O SO 1oo 1se 2ooj} limm
20 10 6,67 5X. -m
-2o--um-..O.25
O.5O.7S1.0 125 Fig. 14 Fourier spectrum (plastically
deformedsurface)
x mm

2
ecgLFegG

giNO &=o%

JrvVVX.
wJ'vL,"X"･twVX,
3.6%
(c)Epi7･3%
7.3%
-I

-2o .L.
O.2S O.5 O.75 1.0 1.25 O 25 so 75 1oo nllmm
40 20 13.3 10 1n Fml
x rnm(plastically

Fig. 13 Surface profile diagram deformed Fig. 15 Autecorrelationfunctionof the Fourier spectrum
surface) (plastically
deformed surface)

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functions for different

plastic strains were calculated relation functionbroadenswith the increaseof plastic
using Eq. (2) and are compared in Fig.15, Variance straln.
aZ of this distributionis plotted against Ep in Fig. 16. The relationship between oZ and di is shown in
It is found that a; increaseswith Ep. Fig. 20. The parameters express width of light inten-

Gray leverdistributions in the images of the laser sity distribution of the Iaserspeckle and width of
specklefordifferentplastic strains are shown in Fig. Fourier spectrum of the surface profile diagrams,
17. Gray leveldistribution
on the u-axis isshown in respectively. The figure shows that ok increases with
Fig. 18. Here, the u-axis passes through the centroid ff3and that they have the same tendency as inthe case
of the intensity distributionof the laser speckle. The of the polished surface shown in Fig. 10. It can be
autocorrelation functionsfor different plastic strains

n
were calculated using Eq. (3),and are compared in 2Y)f'
-- m"Tr -1
Fig.19. ItiscLear that the distribution
of the autocor- [ !
2DQtzae L
t
iT I

j
wn
ISOY>:NI?looiSi I
l
!

soo l1
l
soL 1"-"
700 i

.80-6D -40 -20

1

of
oo o
O 20 40 60
600 za

(a) Initial(Ep-O%)somm
soo o ----7
mor

400

9 1so-ok
300
o 510 IS%20as 100-osot.=LE

s
e .ee.oo -op -2e o 2o ng oo
I
ge
Fig. 16 Relationship between o; and plastic strain ep
u mm
(plastically
deformed surface)
(b) ep=3.6%

2so2oo1se1ooso
200g
tcs>sMso
1oo

(a) Initial(ep=O%) Ost -oo T40 -20 O 20 40 60 so

u mm
2oog (c) Ep=7.3%

100 of laser speckle

Fig, 18 Gray level distribution pattern

o
e8'Regz･

(b) Ep=3.6%

2oog

1oo

e .40 T30 -20 -10 O 10 20 30 40

h mm

Fig. 19 Comparison of autocorrelation function of the

(c) Ep==7.3% speckle intensity distribution(plastically
defermed surface)
Fig. 17 Speckie pattern for d{fferentplastic strains

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coo Figure 21 shows the relationship between surface

roughnessRa and aZ, ItisfoundthataZ increaseswith
the increaseof Ra and this tendency is in complete
300
contrast to the case of polished specimens mentioned

<Fig.11). These results can be explained as

of
above

200
follows.When a specimen is polished with an emery
paper with particles, surface
coarser roughness

becomes largeand of the surface profilevaria-

period
leo tion also becomes large. This means that frequency of
surface profile becomes low and then width of speckle
intensitydistribution becomes small. In contrast,
o is
when a specimen polished with an emery paper with
3cn 4)o soo 6oo 7oo 800900
finerparticles,surface roughness becomes small and
of frequency of surface profile becomes high. Thus
Fig. 20 Relationship between aZ and di (plasticallywidth of the laser speckle intensity distribution
deformecl surface) becornes large. This iswhy wiclth of speckle intensity
distributionbecomes Iarge after polishing with fine-
400
grained emery paper. When specimens are plastically
deforrned,
surface roughness becomes large and slip-

bands occur more densely on the specimen surface

3or)
with increase of plastic strain. When slipbands occur
densely,the ratio of the higher frequency component
of200 in the surface profile increasesand then the width of

the speckre intensitydistributionbecomes large. It is

concluded from these results that width of speckle

100 intensity distribution changes with spatial frequencies

of the specimen surface but does not change with

surface roughness. This fact must be taken into

o
account in measuring surface roughness using laser
O.2 O,3 O,4 O.S O.6 O.7
speckle.
Ra um
The relationship between oZ and ep is shown in
Fig. 21 Relationshipbetween oR and surface roughness Fig.22. It is seen that ak increaseswith Ep. The
Ra (plastically
deformed surface) two specimens. The
experiment was performed using

differenceof issmall, which shows

the two results that
4[M this relationshipis reproducible. It can be said that
there is almost a fixed relationship between ak and Ep.
Therefore,ifwe use thisrelationship, we can estimate
300
plastic strain in a small portion based on the statisti-

intensity distribution oE.

of 200
cal variance of

Noncontact measurement
speckle

of plastic strain ispossible

using this technique.

100
5. Conclusions

In this study, the relatienship between speckle

o
intensity distribution and surface properties of steel
O S 10 IS 20 2S specimens polished by ernery paper with different
particle sizes and plastically deformed by static ten-
q% was investigated. It was found that statistical
sion
Fig, 22 Relationshipbetween oZ ancl Ep
distributionof the lightintensity of speckle patterns is
related to statistical distribution of spatial frequencies
concluded from these results that statistical distribu- in the surface profilediagrams in both cases. How-
tion of the lightintensityof the laser speckle isrelated ever, the relationship between speckle intensityand
to statistical distribution of the spatial frequenciesof surface roughness was found to have opposite ten-
surface profile. dencies in the two cases of polished surface and

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plastically deformed surface. Therefore, speckle

References
intensitydistributionand surface roughness are not
related. (1) Kato, A., Dai, Y.Z. and Chiang, F.P., Damage
It was found that the speckle intensity distribu- Monitoring of Metal Materials by Laser Speckle
tion broadens with increase of plastic strain when Assistedby Image ProcessingTechniques (Basic
Experiment) ,JSME Int.J.,Ser. A, Vol. 34, No. 3
specimens are plastically deformed. It is considered
(1991),p. 374.
that this is because frequency of surface profile
(2) Goldfischer,L.I.,Autocorrelation Function and
becomes high due to the occurrence of slipbands Power Spectral Density of Laser-Produced
caused by plastic deformation.Therefore,the width Speckle Patterns,J. Opt, Soc. America, Vol. 55,
of speckle intensity distribution becomes large with No.3 (1965), p. 247.
increase of plastic strain and the relationship between (3) Dai, Y.Z., Kato, A. and Chiang, F.P., Fatigue
them is found to be reproducible. It is possible to Monitoring by Laser Speckle,Int.J,Fatigue,Vol.
13, No.3 (1991), p. 227.
measure plasticstrain based on the statistical distribu-
tion of lightintensity of the speckle
(4) Asakura, T. and Fujii,H., Characteristicsand
pattern using this
Application of Speckle Pattern,Image Technol-
relationship. We conclude that noncontact measure- ogy and Engineering (Gazou Gijutsu), (in
ment of plasticstrain is possible using this technique. VoL3 (1972),
Japanese), p. 30.
Acknowledgments (5) Inari,T., Surface Roughness Measurement by
Diffraction Pattern,Image Technology and Engi-
Diffractiongratingsused in this study were fa- neering (Gazou Gijutsu), (inJapanese),VoL3
bricatedby Dr. Kazuo Arakawa (Associate Professor (1972), p, I6.
of the Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, {6) Adachi, M., Inari,T. and Kamei, M., Monitoring
of Roughness Profile of Metal Surface Using
Kyushu University> . The authors appreciate hiscoop-
DiffuseReflectionof Laser Light,Trans. of the
eration. This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid
Societyof Instrument and ControlEngineers,Vol.
for Scientific
Research by the Ministryof Education, 20, No.6 (1984), p.536,
Science and Culture, Japan for the fiscalyears 1990 (7) Miyagawa, M. and Azushima, A., Measurement of
and 1991. PlasticDeformation by Means of a Laser Beam,
Proc. of Ninth Worlcl Conference on Non-
DestructiveTesting, (1979), p.1.

Journal
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