ESPI for Aerospace and Aeronautics Applications

Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry (ESPI) is nowadays a very useful and important non-contact optical technique for the aerospace and aeronautic applications. The most important optical configurations employed to measure in-plane and out-of plane deformations in order to obtain the mechanical parameters of interest in aerospace and aeronautic structures are revised. The sensitivity of this technique (tenths of microns) allows using very small loads and, despite of this, to obtain the Young's Module and the Poisson's Coefficient of a sample without any requirement for the specimen shape and without producing any damage to the samples. There are several examples of the employment of the ESPI technique in the field of the aerospace and aeronautic applications. Particularly, the extreme conditions of the Space environment (vacuum, out-gassing, thermal gradients, radiation, mechanical loads, etc.) make the ESPI technique an important non-contact technique for the quality control of Space mechanism and structures.