Non-contact determination of elastic moduli of continuous fiber reinforced metals

Short laser pulses have been used to generate elastic waves in continuous fiber reinforced aluminum or magnesium. With an optical interferometer the run-time of these waves in various directions of the samples can be measured contactless (point-source-point-receiver technique). From these data, the five independent components of the complete elasticity tensor for the unidirectional fiber reinforced composites can be determined. These results agree with measurements by a resonant beam technique, acoustic resonance and 4-point bending tests. The laser pulse technique has several advantages: it is contactless, non-destructive and it can be used for online quality control in production processes. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.