Laser Ultrasonic Shipbuilding Weld Inspection and Monitoring System (Laser SWIMS)

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will determine the feasibility of using laser ultrasonics as a cost-effective technique for in-process inspection of automated welds used in the shipbuilding industry. Laser ultrasonics is a technique for performing ultrasonic inspection using a pulsed laser to generate the ultrasound and a separate cw laser interferometer to detect the ultrasound at the point of interrogation. Laser ultrasonics offers several attractive features for the automated inspection of welds: (1) its remote nature allows the interrogation of hot surfaces in the production environment, (2) the capability of scanning allows the gathering of data at a high rate, (3) advanced, compensated receivers allows the interrogation of rough surfaces moving at high speeds and (4) its high bandwidth provides significant information for signal processing and interpretation. Our approach during Phase I will be to optimize the laser generation and detection process, determine the best beam configuration and develop robust signal processing techniques. We will then build a laboratory breadboard for testing of samples provided by end users. Lasson will team with a shipbuilding company and a supplier of welded components, who will provide guidance on user needs and supply samples for testing. In Phase II a prototype field inspection system will be developed and tested at an end user site.