Generation of carrier fringes in holography and shearography

Double-exposure holography and double-exposure shearography are often used together with the carrier fringe technique, which requires additional shifting of the light source in a prescribed manner between exposures. In the holographic carrier fringe technique, difficulty in prescribing a suitable movement of the light source may be alleviated through visualization of the moiré fringes that are reconstructed by slight displacement of two overlaid families of ellipsoids in a holodiagram. Because shearography is the first differential of holography, it is often impractical to perform two successive optical differentiations on the ellipsoids to visualize the shearographic carrier fringes. A simple method of discerning holographic and shearographic carrier fringes is described. The method is based on the hyperboloids in a holodiagram that represent Young's (interference) fringes produced by the interference of two point sources. The hyperboloids are analogous to holographic carrier fringes, whereas the moiré patterns reconstructed from two overlaid hyperboloids are analogous to shearographic carrier fringes. Use of this method for explaining the formation of deformation fringes in plate bending, as well as the effect of light-source movement on the deformation fringes, is also illustrated. © 2000 Optical Society of America.