Size variation monitoring of an extended thermal radiation source by chromatic filtering

Size variation monitoring of an extended thermal radiation source with single-element detectors is reported. The extended thermal radiation source is imaged on an aperture and the transmitted spectroscopic signals are measured with single-element detectors. The chromatic aberration introduced in the imaging optics causes the detector field of view to vary due to the wavelength. Therefore, the spectroscopic signals obtained from several single-element detectors with dichromatic mirrors and band-pass filters can provide information on size variation as well as intensity of the extended thermal radiation source. This chromatic filtering was applied to size variation monitoring of a molten pool in pulsed Nd,YAG laser welding. The size variation can be monitored during the cooling process with a time interval of up to 50 mu s and the moment when the size of the molten pool becomes the same as that of the focused laser spot can be determined with an accuracy of 0.1 ms. Furthermore, the intermediate stable state of a molten pool was detected and its pulse-to-pulse size variation can be applied to weld process monitoring. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.