Automated broad tuning of difference frequency sources for spectroscopic studies

Transmission spectroscopy over large spectral ranges (>100?cm(-1)) generally requires a reference measurement to be taken separately from the sample scan. The ratio of the two measurements (i.e., the transmittance) is therefore susceptible to baseline changes that occur between the recording of the two spectra. The origins of relatively strong baseline changes (?1%) of a difference-frequency-generation-based laser spectrometer (tuning range 2900-3144?cm(-1), 150?μW average power) were investigated and a method for minimizing them by improving reproducibility and reducing measurement time is presented. The new method was tested for a gas mixture and the sensitivity for broad absorption features was determined as 5×10(-3) minimum measurable absorbance for a total scan duration of 70?min.     

Intensity demodulation-based acoustic sensor using dual fiber Bragg gratings and a titanium film

We report on recent experimental results obtained with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) microphone for acoustic measurement. The sensing element is formed by longitudinally sticking ends of two FBGs onto a titanium film, and then being packaged in an aluminum cylinder. Due to wavelength shift of the FBGs induced by the external acoustic disturbance, the corresponding periodic fluctuation in power can be observed on the optical oscilloscope. Theoretical analysis verifies that the optical power variation, result of the titanium film vibration caused by the acoustic disturbance, possesses a linear relationship with the sound pressure in a specific range. A relatively flat frequency response in the range from 100?Hz to 1?kHz with the average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) above 22?dB is experimentally demonstrated. The maximum sound pressure sensitivity of the proposed sensor is found to be 90?μW/Pa within a sound pressure range 100.3–118.5?dB. The sensing system presents good stability and reliability, and has the advantage of direct self-demodulation.     

简化三阶矩拟正态变换及其在结构可靠度分析中的应用

针对三阶矩拟正态变换理论公式系数形式复杂及现有相关系数的转换公式适用范围未明确的问题,通过对公式系数进行简化和对相关系数的讨论,提出了独立随机变量和相关随机变量的简化三阶矩拟正态变换模型,并给出了相关系数转换公式的简明适用范围。通过将提出的简化三阶矩拟正态变换模型与一阶可靠度分析方法 (FORM)结合,发展了随机变量分布未知条件下的可靠度分析方法,并采用数值算例验证了该方法的准确性和适用性。研究结果表明,所提出的简化三阶矩拟正态变换模型具有较高的准确性和适用性,能够与FORM分析方法结合,实现随机变量分布未知条件下的结构可靠度分析。     

基于亚像素综合定位匹配算法的MEMS平面运动测量

动态测试对MEMS的设计、制造和可靠性具有非常重要的意义．提出了快速高精度的综合亚像素定位匹配算法,应用于MEMS平面运动测量．该综合算法把标准化协方差相关法、亚像素步长相关法、曲面拟合法、序惯相似性检测算法和单纯形法有机结合,综合运用各算法的优点,达到了提高亚像素定位速度和精度的目的．通过位移测量实验和对硅微陀螺仪质量块面内振动及谐振频率的测量,验证了该综合算法的可行性和有效性．     

High-spatial-resolution distributed strain measurement in optical fiber with rayleigh scatter

A method of measuring strain over 30-cm intervals to an accuracy of10 microstrain in unaltered low-loss communications-grade single-modeoptical fiber is presented. The method uses a tunable external cavity diode laser to measure the reflected intensity of a reflector-fiber system as a function of wavelength. This measurement is performed with no strain applied to the fiber to produce a reference and then again after a strain has been induced. Cross correlation of the Rayleigh scatter spectra from a selected section of fiber in the strained and unstrained states determines the spectral shift resulting from the applied strain.     

Brillouin Sensing Cable: Design and Experimental Validation

We report on the design and experimental validation of a distributed Brillouin-based optical fiber sensor embedded into concrete structures for temperature and strain measurement. A composite-made wave-like coating designed by finite-element analysis ensures the sensor is transferring optimally temperature and strain fields from the concrete to the optical fiber, where Brillouin scattering takes place. During all experiments, sensors have been interrogated with a commercially available Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometer unit. First, temperature sensitivity of the Brillouin frequency shift were evaluated in PANDA and SMF28 optical fibers, before wrapping them into the specific sheath for embedment into a 3 m-long reinforced concrete beam. Temperature measurements during concrete beam casting agreed with reference measurements, and showed the significant sensor coating influence. A month later, strain measurements performed during a four-point bending experiment showed promising results: linearity and reliability of measurements were demonstrated, under tensile as well as compressive loadings.     

Micro-three dimensional shape measurement method based on shadow Moiré using scanning electron microscopy

A novel, precise, three-dimensional shape measurement method using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Moiré topography has been proposed. The possibility for measurement of wavelength order using this method is discussed based on results of experiments to confirm the principle. In these experiments, a high-resolution method based on the new measurement method is proposed, employing fringe scanning technology for the shadow Moiré. The optical system is constructed with a SEM using backscattering electrons, a grating holder that can shift the position of the grating, and a grating having a pitch of 120?µm. Measured results using a bearing ball as a sample show that high resolution measurements of around one micrometre can be performed using the fringe scanning method and the new measurement arrangement. An error analysis of the method is performed to enable improvement of the measuring accuracy.     

Analysis and compensation of the measurement error in a lock-in amplifier used for wavelength shift measurements in optical sensing application

The phase measurement error in an interferometric wavelength shift measurement scheme, such as that used in association with in-fiber Bragg grating sensors, has been investigated experimentally with appropriate underpinning analytical theory. It has been shown that when a lock-in amplifier is used to detect the phase shift generated by the Bragg wavelength shift, a pseudoperiodical measurement error can be introduced owing to the difference between the amplitude of the optical path difference ramp and the value of the Bragg wavelength. If the initial ramp deviation equals 20 nm, the measurement error may be as large as +/-2.5% of the total measurement range. With a double-phase lock-in amplifier approach to measure the ac strain, the measurement error can be decreased to 0.4% of the total measurement range. With the real-time measured period that corresponds to the Bragg wavelength with the distorted carrier signal of the interferometer as the reference period of a digital lock-in amplifier, the effect of the initial ramp deviation can be principally avoided, and the measurement error can be kept to an acceptably low level, about 0.1% of the total measurement range.     

Equivalence of digital image correlation criteria for pattern matching

In digital image correlation (DIC), to obtain the displacements of each point of interest, a correlation criterion must be predefined to evaluate the similarity between the reference subset and the target subset. The correlation criterion is of fundamental importance in DIC, and various correlation criteria have been designed and used in literature. However, little research has been carried out to investigate their relations. In this paper, we first provide a comprehensive overview of various correlation criteria used in DIC. Then we focus on three robust and most widely used correlation criteria, i.e., a zero-mean normalized cross-correlation (ZNCC) criterion, a zero-mean normalized sum of squared difference (ZNSSD) criterion, and a parametric sum of squared difference (PSSD(ab)) criterion with two additional unknown parameters, since they are insensitive to the scale and offset changes of the target subset intensity and have been highly recommended for practical use in literature. The three correlation criteria are analyzed to establish their transversal relationships, and the theoretical analyses clearly indicate that the three correlation criteria are actually equivalent, which elegantly unifies these correlation criteria for pattern matching. Finally, the equivalence of these correlation criteria is further validated by numerical simulation and actual experiment.     

基于分段移位的虹膜匹配算法

对于某些虹膜成像装置,同一个虹膜不同次成像的虹膜纹理可能会发生偏移,这种偏移有可能导致虹膜特征编码的偏移,从而直接影响虹膜的特征匹配结果.本文通过对归一化虹膜图像中导致虹膜纹理偏移的影响因素进行了分析,发现这种偏移是有规律的,并针对这种变化规律,提出了一种特征编码分段移位匹配的方法.实验结果表明,本文所提出的方法能够显著降低同一个虹膜不同次成像纹理偏移的特征匹配相异度.     

Permittivity determination of liquid materials using waveguide measurements for industrial applications

There is a need for a simple and relatively inexpensive microwave method for complex permittivity, ?, determination of liquid materials in industrial applications. Measurement cables that connect the measurement cell to the measuring instrument (usually a vector network analyser) may be either subject to severe phase instability particularly if they are long or metrology-grade cables are not available, or subject to thermal variation. In these instances, calibration techniques based on complex scattering parameter measurements may drastically suffer from extension of the reference plane to the boundaries of the measurement cell or sample end surfaces. In such situations, amplitude-only methods based on simplified calibration techniques such as response calibration are appropriate and very feasible. These methods have applications in industry such as thickness measurement and disbonding and delamination detection. The motivation of this study is to investigate a suitable method for ? determination of liquid materials using amplitude-only waveguide measurements. The analysis is restricted to lossy dielectric materials, which possess large enough attenuation such that the multiple reflections between their two end surfaces can be neglected. We derived an equation in terms of the loss tangent of these materials for selecting a suitable material thickness. We presented two approximations (frequency-independent and power-series representation) for ? determination of these materials. For validation of the method, we measured the ? of methanol and commercially available antifreeze solution by our method using a simple (frequency response) calibration and by another waveguide method using the thru-reflect-line calibration.     

Compression and Deformation of Cylindrical Rubber Blocks

In the present study, compression and deformation behavior of vulcanized cylindrical rubber blocks has been examined using imaging techniques. Quantitative measurements of bulge radius and the associated lateral profile of the uniaxially loaded rubber blocks have been carried out experimentally using a newly developed imaging tool. The maximum bulge radius obtained using this method has shown good agreement with the established models. A significant increase in contact area has been observed in the images under large compressive strains. Also, at an intermediate strain level, a unique low intensity band occurred in the image between the outer ring and the center of compressed blocks. The nonlinear characteristics are obvious from the experiments conducted on the bonded cylinders using the developed imaging tool. It is evident from images that the deformed lateral profiles at larger compressive strain does not have parabolic shape and appeared to be more flat. Moreover the reliability of the testing tool has been evaluated and a data measurement technique has been proposed to characterize the behavior of rubber blocks under large compressive strains.     

Procedure to Perform a Validated Incremental Hole Drilling Measurement: Application to Shot Peening Residual Stresses

Abstract: The paper describes a test rig designed to check and assess the accuracy of the incremental hole drilling (IHD) method. An external load produces a controlled linearly through thickness variable uniaxial stress field (reference bending stress), known with good accuracy, that can be applied and removed at each hole increment. After the separation between the bending relaxed strain from the residual stress relaxed strain, it is possible to reproduce the bending stress distribution in order to have complete confidence of the residual stress measurement. The bending verification of the IHD method was already proposed by other investigators before, but residual stress measurements were then performed on independent configurations. The proposed testing procedure gives a ‘real time’ verification of the residual stress measurement. Any experimental malfunctioning due to the operator inexperience, or any error during the stress calculation from the relaxed strain would produce an evident difference between the expected reference bending stress and the IHD bending stress output. Moreover, the reference bending stress helped for understanding that the not perfect hole cylindrical shape causes an underestimate of the predicted stress near the surface. A zero depth offset correction was proposed. This correction was tested on the reference bending stress, and then applied to the residual stress prediction. Three shot peening residual stresses IHD measurements were successfully validated by means of the bending stress; moreover, they were in good agreement with independent X‐ray diffraction measures also proposed in the paper.     

Robust chaotic communications exploiting waveform diversity. part 2: Complexity reduction and equalisation

The symbolic dynamics method of communication using chaotic systems has previously been shown to offer performance better than conventional binary phase shift keying (BPSK), while also providing similar spectrum efficiency. This is achieved by exploiting diversity in the waveform, through a mechanism similar to partial response signalling. In order to achieve this performance, a correlation method for detection has been proposed, but complexity was high and only performance in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels has been considered. It is demonstrated that the complexity can be reduced from requiring 1024 correlations per symbol down to only 32, while degrading performance only by 0.6 dB. The ability to further reduce the occupied bandwidth is investigated. Spectrum occupancy equivalent to a root-raised cosine-filtered BPSK signal is demonstrated, and performance is maintained when the reference waveforms are similarly filtered to maintain the signal match. Finally, a novel equalisation technique that incorporates a decision feedback structure into the correlation detector is proposed. Performance in multipath channels is investigated and shown to be effective.     

Application of digital image analysis to strain measurement at elevated temperature

Digital imaging techniques are applied to the measurement of surface displacement and strain at elevated temperatures. A simple surface preparation using high temperature paint together with a CCD video camera for digital imaging serve as the basis for the measurements. Mathemetical correlation of the surface intensity pattern between reference and deformed states is used to measure local surface deformation. The method is non-contacting and full field. Displacement and strain measurements have been made at temperatures to 600°. Coefficients of thermal expansion of three metals have been measured using this technique and compared to strain gauge and handbook values. Limitations and potential extensions of the method are discussed.     

Shape similarity assessment of polyhedral parts based on boundary models

Shape similarity evaluation is the core technology for many intelligent CAD/CAM applications. In this work a method to evaluate the shape similarity of polyhedral objects based on their boundary models is presented. The proposed method takes the unique boundary models of a query part and a reference part as its input and returns the match coefficient between these two parts. The match coefficient is calculated based on the 'feasible match' of the boundary faces, which is a set of matched faces that preserve the face adjacency relationships. While directly searching for the optimal feasible match in two boundary models could be computationally intractable, a divide-and-conquer method is proposed in this work to find a near-optimal match in a reasonable time. The divide stage corresponds to the extraction and matching of 'sweep features'. A sweep feature of a polyhedral object is a set of parallel faces that are sorted along their common normal vector. The sorted faces in sweep features are matched through an efficient constraint-directed tree search to generate intermediate matches. The intermediate matches that are orientation consistent are merged to form the final feasible matches. A prototype system based on the proposed methodology has been implemented and shape similarity comparison results between various mechanical parts with complicated intersecting features are presented.     

Design of an optical content-addressable parallel processor for expert systems

The slow execution speed of current rule-based systems (RBS's) has restricted their application areas. To improve the speed of RBS's, researchers have proposed various electronic multiprocessor systems as well as optical systems. However, the electronic systems still suffer in performance from the large amount of required time-consuming pattern-matching and comparison operations at the core of RBS's. And optical systems do not fully exploit the available parallelism in RBS's. We propose an optical content-addressable parallel processor for expert systems. The processor executes the three basic RBS operations, match, select, and act, in a highly parallel fashion. Additionally, it extracts and exploits all possible parallelism in a RBS. Distinctive features of the proposed system include the following: (1) two-dimensional representation of data (knowledge) and control information to exploit the parallelism of optics in the three RBS units; (2) capability of processing general-domain knowledge expressed in terms of variables, numbers, symbols, and comparison operators such as greater than and less than; (3) the parallel optical match unit, which performs the two-dimensional optical pattern matching and comparison operations; (4) a novel conflict-resolution algorithm to resolve conflicts in a single step within the optical select unit. The three units and the general-knowledge representation scheme are designed to make the optical content-addressable parallel processor for expert systems suitable for any high-speed general-purpose RBS.     

防屈曲可更换伸臂桁架弦杆抗震性能试验研究

为提高伸臂桁架弦杆的延性变形能力和震后可修复能力,提出了一种防屈曲可更换伸臂桁架弦杆.为研究上述新型弦杆的可行性和可靠性,采用1∶3的缩尺比例,设计制作了 1个传统削弱式截面(reduced beam section,RBS)弦杆和2不同构造形式的新型防屈曲可更换弦杆,开展了拟静力低周往复加载实验.对新型弦杆的变形能力...     

Towards Material Testing 2.0. A review of test design for identification of constitutive parameters from full‐field measurements

Full‐field optical measurements like digital image correlation or the grid method have brought a paradigm shift in the experimental mechanics community. While inverse identification techniques like finite element model updating or the virtual fields method have been the object of significant developments, current test methods, inherited from the age of strain gauges or linear variable displacement transducers, are generally not well adapted to the rich information provided by these new measurement tools. This paper provides a review of the research dealing with the design and optimization of heterogeneous mechanical tests for the identification of material parameters from full‐field measurements, christened here Material Testing 2.0 (MT2.0).     

Total internal reflection for precision small-angle measurement

A method for precision small-angle measurement is proposed. This method is based on the total-internal-reflection effect of a light beam at a pair of glass prisms. Angular displacement of the light beam is measured when the intensity change of the reflected beam is detected as a result of the relative phase shift between the s- and the p-polarized beams. An initial phase shift between the s- and the p-polarized components is introduced to increase measurement sensitivity. For increased measurement linearity and reduced effect of laser power fluctuation on the output, a differential method is used in which the light beam is split equally into two beams, each reflected at a prism and detected by a photodiode. The output is obtained as the difference of the two detected intensities divided by their sum. A prototype device was built, which demonstrated a nonlinearity error of 1.3% in a measurement range of ?0.6 degrees or 0.4% in ?0.3 degrees . The peak-to-peak noise level was found to be at approximately 0.5 arc sec. This noise level can be reduced further and resolution increased by a reduction of the measurement range.