Novel fiber optic laser probe for the inspection of internal cylindrical surfaces

Abstract

Nowadays several techniques are available for the inspection and crack detection in internal cylindrical surfaces as, for instance, those of heat exchanger pipes, being miniaturized optical probes (endoscopes, CCD cameras, etc..) and eddy current probes the most commonly used in industrial applications. Both techniques, however, present strong limitations. To overcome these limitations a new approach, based on the use of an optical fiber linear array, has been explored by our group, for which a specifically designed fiberoptic probe has been exhaustively tested in order to evaluate the possibilities of this technique.