• Project title: HYBRid LAser SOurce for LUS (Laser-Ultrasound)
• Acronym: HYBRASOLUS
• Duration: 36 months (start: 01.03.2023)
• Funding: FFG Austrian Research Promotion Agency
  
  

Innovative production methods and demanding products, such as aircraft components made of composite materials, high-pressure hydrogen tanks, and wafer bonding in the semiconductor industry, require increasingly sophisticated testing methods.

These are essential to guarantee high quality standards consistently while conserving resources in production and to quickly detect and evaluate defects in the life cycle.

The aim of this research project is the targeted and efficient generation of ultrasonic waves in a limited frequency band adapted to the detection or method by a new excitation laser for laser ultrasonic NDT technology. The new excitation laser generates a matched ultrasound frequency band in the usable range instead of a broad frequency spectrum as with the q-switched laser. This results in a 100-fold increase in energy for targeted defect detection and material characterization with the same laser power and energy input at the surface. Targeted excitation of specific frequency bands will be used to investigate and test the applicability of special acoustic phenomena that require high excitation energies, such as ultrasonic nonlinearities.

In addition to a significant improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio and a lower component load due to the test, this should open up new NDT possibilities.