The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 19, 1989
Filed:
Dec. 07, 1987
Yau Y Hung, Rochester, MI (US);
Other;
Abstract
A test object is analyzed electronically, i.e. without the use of photographic film. The invention generates a pair of laterally-displaced images of the object which interfere with each other to produce a pattern that can be recorded without a high-resolution detector. The object is illuminated with at least partially coherent light. Reflected light from the object is directed through a birefringent material, a lens system, a polarizer, and then to an image detector, such as a video camera. The birefringent material causes non-parallel beams originating from a unique pair of points on the object to become nearly parallel, and orthogonally polarized. The polarizer modifies the polarization of the parallel beams so that they will interfere with each other. Because the interfering light beams are nearly parallel, the spatial frequency of the interference pattern is sufficiently low that the pattern can be recorded by a low-resolution detector, such as a video camera. Interference patterns due to the superposition of two laterally-displaced images of the same object are recorded while the object is in an undeformed and a deformed state. A computer compares these interference patterns and produces a resultant pattern which depicts the deformation of the test object. Because photographic film is not needed, the invention can analyze objects very rapidly. Also, since the interference pattern is derived from pairs of distinct points on the object, the invention directly provides information on strain.