The TV-shearography system from Steinbichler Optotechnik is an easy-to-use technology for the contactless, non-destructive material testing.

Especially in the tire industry as well as in the aerospace industry, TV-shearography has been used in quality control for precise fault detection.

The TV-shearography method is ideally suited to test parts made of fiber composites. Further applications are the testing of metal-rubber joints and ceramic components.

The measurement principle is based on the fact that an object under a proof load (far below destruction threshold) shows a typical deformation in the fault area which significantly differs from the faultless area. The recording medium is a CCD-camera which acquires the object to be measured in its original state. Afterwards, a proof load is applied to the object, and the deformation (µ-range), is calculated in realtime (video frequency). The evaluation of the images is done by the image analysis system with the image analysis software FRAMESplus under Windows NT. Depending on the object size, laser diodes, gas lasers, and solid-state lasers are used as light sources.

The TV-shearography system offers important advantages:

- fast and non-contact measurement and evaluation for
  quality assurance and material optimization

- optimized for 100 % control

- robust construction for industrial use

- detection of delaminations, cracks, impacts, etc. in
  composite materials

- low vibration sensitivity

- compensation of rigid body motions by measure-
  ment of the first derivation of the object deformation